The official language of the French Republic is French (art. 2 of the French Constitution) and the French government is, by law, compelled to communicate primarily in French. The government, furthermore, mandates that commercial advertising be available in French (though it can also use other languages); see Toubon Law. The French government, however, does not mandate the use of French by private individuals or corporations or in any other media.

A revision of the French constitution creating official recognition of regional languages was implemented by the Parliament in Congress at Versailles in July 2008.[4]

The 1999 Report written for the government by Bernard Cerquiglini identified 75 languages that would qualify for recognition under the government's proposed ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. 24 of those languages are indigenous to the European territory of the state while all the others are from overseas areas of the French Republic (in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean and South America).

Although ratification was blocked by the Constitutional Council as contradicting the Fifth Republic's constitutional provision enshrining French as the language of the Republic, the government continues to recognise regional and minority languages to a limited extent (i.e. without granting them official status) and the Délégation générale à la langue française has acquired the additional function of observing and studying the languages of France and has had et aux langues de France added to its title. The category of languages of France (in French: langues de France) is thus administratively recognised even if this does not go so far as to provide any official status. Following his election as President, François Hollande reasserted in 2012 his campaign platform to ratify the European Charter and ensure a clear legal framework for regional languages (within a programme of administrative decentralisation that would give compentencies to the regions in language policy).[5]

The regional languages of France are sometimes called patois, but this term (roughly meaning "dialect") is often considered derogatory. Patois is used to refer to supposedly purely oral languages,[citation needed] but this does not, for instance, take into account that Occitan was already being written at a time when French was not and its literature has continued to thrive, with a Nobel Prize for Frédéric Mistral in 1904.

At the time of the French revolution in 1789 it is estimated that only half of the population of France could speak any French, and as late as 1871 only a quarter spoke French as their native language.[6]

The topic of the teaching of regional languages in public primary and secondary schools is controversial. Proponents of the measure state that it would be necessary for the preservation of those languages and to show respect to the local culture. Opponents contend that local languages are often non-standardised (thus making curricula difficult), of dubious practical usefulness (since most are spoken by a small number of people, without any sizable corpus of publications) and that the curriculum and funding of public schools are already too strained, the topic also leads to wider controversial questions of autonomy of the régions. Regarding other languages, English, Spanish, Italian and German are the most commonly studied foreign languages in French schools.

In April 2001, the Minister of Education, Jack Lang,[7] admitted formally that for more than two centuries, the political powers of the French government had repressed regional languages[citation needed], and announced that bilingual education would, for the first time, be recognised, and bilingual teachers recruited in French public schools.

Portuguese: mostly the European variant, spoken by about 700,000 people.

English: significant British minorities in Aquitaine and Brittany, as well as commuters working in the UK but living in Nord-Pas-de-Calais. Dispersed minorities in Paris and on the Côte d'Azur (French Riviera), the most widely taught foreign language in the French education system, but not widely used and understood except in specific job positions (chiefly technical and tourism). About 325,000 home speakers.

At the 1999 census, INSEE sampled 380,000 adult people all across Metropolitan France, and asked them questions about their family situation. One of the questions was about the languages that their parents spoke with them before the age of 5, this is the first time serious statistics were computed about the proportion of mother tongues in France. The results were published in Enquête familiale, Insee, 1999.[citation needed]

Here is a list of the nine most prominent mother tongues in France based on Enquête familiale.[citation needed]

45,762,000 (46,680,000 including those with two mother tongues who were counted twice)

102% (2% of people have both French and another language as their mother tongue, thus, they are counted twice)

If we add up people with mother tongue and people with some exposure to the language before the age of 5 (see note #3 below), then the five most important languages in metropolitan France are (note that the percentages add up to more than 100, because many people are now counted twice):

The data in the table are about mother tongues, and not about actual language practice. It states that 14% of the adult people living in France in 1999 were born and raised up to the age of 5 in families that spoke only (or predominantly) some other languages than French, it does not mean that 14% of adult people in France spoke some other languages than French in 1999.

Only adults (i.e. 18 years and older) were surveyed. This means that French people born between 1981 and 1999 are not included in the survey, the mother tongue of the younger generations is more predominantly French than is the case with the older generations, because as the Enquête familiale survey explains, regional and immigrant language transmission decreases dramatically with each new generation, as French replaces the regional and immigrant languages. In the Enquête familiale survey, only 35% of parents whose mother tongue was a regional or immigrant language reported they spoke that language to their children. Thus, the 86% figure of people with French as their mother tongue is an underestimate because the younger generations whose predominant mother tongue is French are not counted.

The concept of "mother tongue" may not give a complete idea of the phenomenon of minority languages in France. This is because there are many people who were born and raised in families in which parents spoke to them only (or predominantly) French, but in which some regional or immigration languages were also occasionally used. One example: while the data tell us that 610,000 adults in 1999 had one of the Occitan dialects as their mother tongue, the survey also found out that another 1,060,000 adults were born and raised in families in which one of the Occitan dialects was occasionally spoken, some of these 1,060,000 people may speak Occitan as fluently as the 610,000 people who have it as a mother tongue, while some other (the majority, probably) have only a limited knowledge of Occitan. We cannot infer from this that 1,670,000 adults are speakers of Occitan, but it may be the case that the total number of people with some form of exposure to Occitan is higher than the 610,000 figure, though some of this number may have abandoned the language since then.

1.
Corsican language
–
Corsican is a Romance language within the Italo-Dalmatian subfamily. It is closely related to the Italian language and especially to its Tuscan branch and it is spoken and written on the islands of Corsica and northern Sardinia. Over the next two centuries, the use of French grew to the extent that, by the Liberation in 1945, the 20th century saw a wholesale language shift, with islanders changing their language practices to the extent that there were no monolingual Corsican speakers left by the 1960s. By 1995, an estimated 65 percent of islanders had some degree of proficiency in Corsican, one of the main sources of confusion in popular classifications is the difference between a dialect and a language. Typically it is not possible to ascertain what an author means by these terms, one of the characteristics of Italian is the retention of the -re infinitive ending as in Latin mittere, send. Such infinitival ending is lost in Corsican as well as in Tuscan, the term gallicised Corsican refers to Corsican up to about the year 1950. The term distanciated Corsican refers to an idealized Corsican from which various agents have removed French or other elements, in 40 AD, the natives of Corsica did not speak Latin. The Roman exile, Seneca the Younger, reports that both coast and interior were occupied by natives whose language he did not understand, whatever language was spoken is still visible in the toponymy or in some words, for instance in the Gallurese dialect spoken in Sardinia zerru pig. A similar situation is valid for Sardinian and Sicilian, the occupation of the island by the Vandals around the year 469 marked the end of authoritative influence by Latin speakers. If the natives of that time spoke Latin, they must have acquired it during the late empire. The two most widely spoken forms of the Corsican language are Supranacciu or Cismonticu, spoken in the Bastia and Corte area, the dialect of Ajaccio has been described as in transition. The dialects spoken at Calvi and Bonifacio are closer to the Genoese dialect, whether the two should be included either in Corsican or in Sardinian as dialects or considered independent languages is still subject of debate. On Maddalena archipelago the local dialect was brought by fishermen and shepherds from Bonifacio during immigration in the 17th and 18th centuries, though influenced by Gallurese, it has maintained the original characteristics of Corsican. There are also words of Genoese and Ponzese origin. They are thus defined as different languages from Sardinian by the Sardinian government. Only a fraction of the population at either time spoke Corsican with any fluency, the use of Corsican language over French language has been declining. In 1980 about 70 percent of the population of the island had some command of the Corsican language, in 1990 out of a total population of about 254,000 the percentage had declined to 50 percent, with only 10 percent using it as a first language. The language appeared to be in decline when the French government reversed its unsupportive stand

2.
Breton language
–
Breton /ˈbrɛtən/ is a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Brittany. Breton is most closely related to Cornish, both being Southwestern Brittonic languages, Welsh and the extinct Cumbric are the more distantly related Brittonic languages. The other regional language of Brittany, Gallo, is a langue doïl, Gallo is consequently close to French, although not mutually intelligible, and a Romance language descended from Latin. However, the number of children attending bilingual classes has risen 33% between 2006 and 2012 to 14,709, Breton is spoken in West Brittany, roughly to the west of a line linking Plouha and La Roche-Bernard. It comes from a Brittonic language community that extended from Great Britain to Armorica and had even established a toehold in Galicia. Old Breton is attested from the 9th century and it was the language of the upper classes until the 12th century, after which it became the language of commoners in Lower Brittany. The nobility, followed by the bourgeoisie, adopted French, the written language of the Duchy of Brittany was Latin, switching to French in the 15th century. There exists a tradition of Breton literature. Some Old Breton vocabulary remains in the present day as philosophical, during the French Revolution, the government introduced policies favouring French over the regional languages, which it pejoratively referred to as patois. The revolutionaries assumed that reactionary and monarchist forces preferred regional languages to try to keep the peasant masses underinformed, in 1794, Bertrand Barère submitted his report on the patois to the Committee of Public Safety in which he said that federalism and superstition speak Breton. Teachers humiliated students for using their regional languages, and such practices prevailed until the late 1960s, the majority of todays speakers are more than 60 years old, and Breton is now classified as an endangered language. At the beginning of the 20th century, half of the population of Lower Brittany knew only Breton, by 1950, there were only 100,000 monolingual Bretons, and this rapid decline has continued, with likely no monolingual speakers left today. A statistical survey in 1997 found around 300,000 speakers in Lower Brittany, few 15- to 19-year-olds spoke Breton. In 1925, Professor Roparz Hemon founded the Breton-language review Gwalarn, during its 19-year run, Gwalarn tried to raise the language to the level of a great international language. Its publication encouraged the creation of literature in all genres. In 1946, Al Liamm replaced Gwalarn, other Breton-language periodicals have been published, which established a fairly large body of literature for a minority language. In 1977, Diwan schools were founded to teach Breton by immersion and they taught a few thousand young people from elementary school to high school. See the education section for more information, the Asterix comic series has been translated into Breton

Breton language
–
Bilingual sign Huelgoat, Brittany
Breton language
–
Ofis Publik ar Brezhoneg, the Breton language agency, was set up in 1999 by the Brittany region to promote and develop the use of Breton
Breton language
–
Bilingual sign in Vannes (Gwened)
Breton language
–
Sign in French and Breton in Rennes, outside a school with bilingual classes

3.
Gallo language
–
Gallo is a regional language of France. It is not as commonly spoken as it once was, as the form of French now predominates. Gallo is classified as one of the Oïl languages, Gallo was originally spoken in the Marches of Neustria, which now corresponds to the border lands of Brittany and Normandy and its former heart in Le Mans, Maine. Gallo was the spoken language of the leaders of the Norman conquest of England, most of whom originated in Upper Brittany. Thus Gallo was a vehicle for the subsequent transformation of English, as an Oïl language, Gallo forms part of a dialect continuum which includes Norman, Picard and the Poitevin dialect, among others. One of the features that distinguishes it from Norman is the absence of Old Norse influence, there is some limited mutual intelligibility with adjacent varieties of the Norman language along the linguistic frontier and with Guernésiais and Jèrriais. However, as the dialect continuum shades towards Mayennais, there is a clear isogloss. The clearest isogloss is that distinguishing Gallo from Breton, a Brittonic Celtic language traditionally spoken in the territory of Brittany. In the west, the vocabulary of Gallo has been influenced by contact with Breton, the influence of Breton decreases eastwards across Gallo-speaking territory. The term gallo is sometimes spelled galo or gallot and it is also referred to as langue gallèse or britto-roman in Brittany. In south Lower Normandy and in the west of Pays de la Loire it is referred to as patois. Gallo comes from the Breton word gall, meaning “foreigner”, “French” or “non-Breton”, the Celts settled in Armorica toward the 8th century BC. Some of early groups mentioned in the records of the Greeks were the Redones. They spoke dialects of the Gaulish language and maintained important economic ties with the British Isles, julius Caesar’s invasion of Armorica in 56 BC led to a sort of Romanization of the population. Gaulish continued to be spoken in this region until the 6th century, especially in less populated, when the Bretons emigrated to Armorica around this time, they found a people who had retained their Celtic language and culture. The Bretons were therefore able to integrate easily, in contrast to Armorica’s western countryside, Nantes and Rennes were Roman cultural centres. Following the Migration Period, these two cities, as well as regions to the east of the Vilaine, including the town Vannes, fell under Frankish rule. Thus, during the Merovingian dynasty, the population of Armorica was diverse, consisting of Gaulish tribes with assimilated Bretons, as well as Romanized cities and Germanic tribes

Gallo language
–
The town of Loudéac displays its Gallo name, Loudia, on signage
Gallo language
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The historical Gallo language area of Upper Brittany
Gallo language
–
A Gallo sign in the Rennesmetro
Gallo language
–
Bilingual signage in the Rennesmetro

4.
Walloon language
–
It belongs to the langue doïl language family, whose most prominent member is the French language. The historical background of its formation was the extension since 980 of the Principality of Liège to the south. Despite its rich literature, beginning anonymously in the 16th century and with well-known authors since 1756 and this period definitively established French as the language of social promotion, far more than it was before. Subsequently, since the middle of the 20th century, generational transmission of the language has decreased, today it is scarcely spoken among younger people. In 1996, the number of people with knowledge of the language was estimated at between 1 and 1.3 million, numerous associations, especially theatre companies, are working to keep the language alive. Formally recognized as a langue régionale endogène of Belgium since 1990, the Feller system regularized transcription of the different accents. Since the 1990s, a common orthography was established, which allowed large-scale publications, in 2004, a Walloon translation of a Tintin comic was released under the name Lèmerôde dal Castafiore, in 2007 an album consisting of Gaston Lagaffe comic strips was published in Walloon. Walloon is more distinct as a language than Belgian French, which differs from the French spoken in France only in minor points of vocabulary. Linguists had long classified Walloon as a dialect of French, which in turn is a langue doïl, like French, it descended from Vulgar Latin. The phonological divisions of regional languages of southern Belgium were studied by the contemporary linguist E. B and he defined the precise geographical repartition of the four chief dialects of Walloon. In addition, he defined them against the dialects of Picard, Lorrain, since then, most linguists, and gradually also Walloon politicians, regard Walloon as a regional language, the first in importance in Wallonia. It is the one to have originated from that part of Belgium. The eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica identified Walloon as the northern-most Romance language, Walloon is spoken in the Wallonia Region in Belgium. Although Walloon was widely spoken until the mid-20th century, today only a proportion of the inhabitants of the region are fluent in the language. Most younger people know more than a few idiomatic expressions. The Walloon language is part of the Walloon heritage, it is one component of Walloon identity. Despite local phonetic differences, there is a movement towards the adoption of a common spelling. This orthography is diasystemic, reflecting different pronunciations for different readers, the written forms attempt to reconcile current phonetic uses with ancient traditions and the languages own phonological logic

5.
West Flemish
–
West Flemish is a dialect of the Dutch language spoken in western Belgium and adjoining parts of the Netherlands and France. Some of the cities where West Flemish is widely spoken are Bruges, Kortrijk, Ostend, Roeselare. The dialects of the rest of the Dutch province of Zeeland, Zeelandic, are included in West Flemish. West Flemish is listed as a language in UNESCOs online Red Book of Endangered Languages. West Flemish phonology differs a lot from the standard Dutch phonology, the best known are the velar fricatives g and ch in Dutch, being realised as glottal h -, and the overall lack of diphthongs compared to Dutch. The following differences are listed by their Dutch spelling, as different letters have evolved to the same sound in Dutch. Pronunciations can also differ a bit from region to region, sch - /sx/ is realised as, or. Ei - /ɛi/ is realised as or, ij - /ɛi/ is realised as. Au - /ʌu/ is realised as ou - /ʌu/ is realised as, it resembles a lot the long oe that is used in Dutch. Ie - /i/ is more stressed towards aa - /aː/ is realised as, due to the non-existent /x/ and /ɣ/ sounds in West Flemish, native speakers of the dialect have to concentrate a lot to pronounce these sounds. This often results in hyper-correction of the /h/ sounds to a /x/ or /ɣ/, the Dutch language also has many words with an -en suffix. While standard Dutch and most Dutch dialects dont pronounce the final n, West Flemish typically drops the e, for base words already ending with n, the final n sound is often prolonged to make the suffix clear. This mute-e is similar to many English words, beaten, listen, the short o in words can also be pronounced as a short u. This happens spontaneously on some words, but other words keep their original short o sounds, similarly, the short a can turn into a short o in some words without apparent reason. The diftong ui doesnt exist in West Flemish, and is pronounced as a u or a long ie. Similar to the ui, the o can turn into an on some words. This transition often shows similarities with English and this phenomenon is shared with the Lower Saxon Germanic dialects, and even more prominent in English. Under influence of Standard Dutch, the number of people that uses the -s suffix for the form on these words diverging from Dutch is diminishing

West Flemish
–
Bachten de Kupe (nl) scenic road sign.
West Flemish
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Flemish (green) and French (red/brown) as spoken in the arrondissement of Dunkirk in France, in 1874 and 1972
West Flemish
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Apartment building in Blankenberge (Belgium) with West Flemish name "Yzeren Rampe" (Iron embankment)

6.
Languages of New Caledonia
–
New Caledonia, a part of the French Republic, uses French as its official language, following the constitutional law 92-554. The thirty New Caledonian languages form a branch of the Southern Oceanic languages and their speakers are known as Kanaks. This language allowed them to communicate with shopkeepers or with the other Melanesian populations and those native languages have been favoured by some of the missionaries to evangelize the population, the Catholic missionaries preferred the usage of French. Thus, there were three languages used, French, English, and Bislama, New Caledonia is constituted of numerous populations, but the vast majority is represented by Kanaks or Europeans. Nowadays, there are about 30 Melanesian languages present, and also other languages peculiar to the immigrant populations and those populations have immigrated to New Caledonia during the nickel rush. The native languages of New Caledonia are part of the Austronesian family and this family extends from the island of Madagascar, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and covers almost all of the Pacific. Those languages have differences between them. English is also present in New Caledonia, as everywhere in the world, the forty native languages of New Caledonia form two branches of the Southern Oceanic languages, part of the Austronesian family, West Uvean is Polynesian. Their speakers are known as Kanaks, the most important are, Drehu, Nengone, Paicî, Ajië, and Xârâcùù. The other languages are spoken by a few hundred to couple thousand people and are endangered, many Kanaks do not know their native languages very well because of the wide usage of French. Thus, this is a “regional French”, which differs from standard French and these languages have to be taken into account too because of the numerous number of immigrants in New Caledonia. Nevertheless, these languages are a minority, mainly spoken in the capital, New Caledonia being a part of French Republic, its official language is French, following the constitutional law 92-554. This law is applicable to every field, at the level of legislation and justice, on some occasions they may have recourse to a Melanesian language. A series of decrees and clauses allow the usage of Melanesian languages in education in some cases, the more important law to that purpose is the “Loi d’orientation d’Outre-Mer” which stipulates that we have to respect these native languages which are a part of New Caledonian culture. Secondary school is under State authority, therefore, the language in application is French, some schools give optional native languages lessons, but it is still very rare. Nevertheless, four languages are proposed at the baccalaureate, Ajië, Drehu, Nengone, there has been controversy about the educational system, as it has been claimed, that the programs are not adjusted to the population. As a French overseas department New Caledonia is almost exclusively under the control of France at the educative level. Moreover, French is only a second language for significant minority of New Caledonians and this situation has been described as a major cause for the high rate of illiteracy and academic failure by New Caledonian students

Languages of New Caledonia
–
Populations of the native languages of New Caledonia

7.
Arabic
–
Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested

Arabic
–
The Galland Manuscript of One Thousand and One Nights, 14th century
Arabic
–
Arabic is the sole official language
Arabic
–
Bilingual traffic sign in Qatar.
Arabic
–
Examples of how the Arabic root and form system works.

8.
Polish language
–
Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations

9.
English language
–
English /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/ is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now the global lingua franca. Named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England, English is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states. It is the third most common language in the world, after Mandarin. It is the most widely learned second language and a language of the United Nations, of the European Union. It is the most widely spoken Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch, English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the century, are called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England, Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London and the King James Bible, and the start of the Great Vowel Shift. Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, modern English spread around the world from the 17th to mid-20th centuries, English is an Indo-European language, and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages. Most closely related to English are the Frisian languages, and English, Old Saxon and its descendent Low German languages are also closely related, and sometimes Low German, English, and Frisian are grouped together as the Ingvaeonic or North Sea Germanic languages. Modern English descends from Middle English, which in turn descends from Old English, particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into a number of other English languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian and Forth and Bargy dialects of Ireland. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares new language features with other Germanic languages such as Dutch, German and these shared innovations show that the languages have descended from a single common ancestor, which linguists call Proto-Germanic. Through Grimms law, the word for foot begins with /f/ in Germanic languages, English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as the palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic. The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon, in the fifth century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain and the Romans withdrew from Britain. England and English are named after the Angles, Old English was divided into four dialects, the Anglian dialects, Mercian and Northumbrian, and the Saxon dialects, Kentish and West Saxon. Through the educational reforms of King Alfred in the century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex. The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from the period of Old English were written using a runic script. By the sixth century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms and it included the runic letters wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ and thorn ⟨þ⟩, and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ð⟩, and ash ⟨æ⟩

English language
–
The opening to the Old English epic poem Beowulf, handwritten in half-uncial script: Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge frunon... "Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the glory of the folk-kings..."
English language
–
Countries of the world where English is a majority native language
English language
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Title page of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales c.1400

10.
Foreign language
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A foreign language is a language indigenous to another country. It is also a language not spoken in the country of the person referred to. These two characterisations do not exhaust the possible definitions, however, and the label is applied in ways that are variously misleading or factually inaccurate. Some children learn more than one language from birth or from a young age. For example, a child learning English from his English father and this is common in countries such as India, South Africa, or Canada due to these countries having multiple official languages. In general, it is believed that children have advantage to learning a language over adults. However, there are studies which have shown adult students are better at foreign language learning than child students and it is because adults have pre-existing knowledge of how grammar works, and a superior ability of memorizing vocabulary. See main article, Language education Most schools around the world teach at least one language and most colleges. On average in Europe, at the start of foreign language teaching, compulsory lessons in a foreign language normally start at the end of primary school or the start of secondary school. In Luxembourg, Norway and Malta, however, the first foreign language is studied at age six, in Wales, all children are taught Welsh from the first year of primary school. The Welsh language is compulsory up to the age of 16. This method is highly used in Canada, wherein anglophone students spend all of most of their lessons learning the materials in French. In 1995, the European Commissions White Paper on Education and Training emphasised the importance of learning at least two foreign languages before upper secondary education. The Lisbon Summit of 2000 defined languages as one of the five key skills, despite the high rate of foreign language teaching in schools, the number of adults claiming to speak a foreign language is generally lower than might be expected. In 2001, a European Commission survey found that 65. 9% of people in the UK spoke only their native tongue, since the 1990s, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages has tried to standardise the learning of languages across Europe. An article from The Atlantic claims that only 1 percent of the adults within the American population consider themselves proficient in speaking a foreign language and this is in stark contrast to many other countries, where the percentage is much higher. Even though there are benefits that come with learning a foreign language. Further results showed that nine out of 10 British companies thought their businesses could benefit from better language skills, also due to the increase of international population, a multilingual person can easily communicate and translate to perspective viewers

Foreign language
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A German student learning French. English (1.5 billion learners), French (82 million learners) and Chinese (30 million learners) are the three most commonly studied foreign languages.

11.
History of France
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The first written records for the history of France appear in the Iron Age. The Gauls, the largest and best attested group, were Celtic people speaking what is known as the Gaulish language, over the course of the 1st millennium BC the Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians established colonies on the Mediterranean coast and the offshore islands. Afterwards a Gallo-Roman culture emerged and Gaul was increasingly integrated into the Roman Empire, in the later stages of the Roman Empire, Gaul was subject to barbarian raids and migration, most importantly by the Germanic Franks. The Frankish king Clovis I united most of Gaul under his rule in the late 5th century, Frankish power reached its fullest extent under Charlemagne. The war formally began in 1337 following Philip VIs attempt to seize the Duchy of Aquitaine from its holder, Edward III of England. Despite early Plantagenet victories, including the capture and ransom of John II of France, among the notable figures of the war was Joan of Arc, a French peasant girl who led French forces against the English, establishing herself as a national heroine. The war ended with a Valois victory in 1453, victory in the Hundred Years War had the effect of strengthening French nationalism and vastly increasing the power and reach of the French monarchy. During the period known as the Ancien Régime, France transformed into an absolute monarchy. During the next centuries, France experienced the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation, Henry, King of Navarre, scion of the Bourbon family, would be victorious in the conflict and establish the French Bourbon dynasty. A burgeoning worldwide colonial empire was established in the 16th century, French political power reached a zenith under the rule of Louis XIV, The Sun King, builder of Versailles Palace. In the late 18th century the monarchy and associated institutions were overthrown in the French Revolution, the country was governed for a period as a Republic, until the French Empire was declared by Napoleon Bonaparte. France was one of the Triple Entente powers in World War I, fighting alongside the United Kingdom, Russia, Italy, Japan, the United States and smaller allies against Germany and the Central Powers. France was one of the Allied Powers in World War II, the Third Republic was dismantled, and most of the country was controlled directly by Germany while the south was controlled until 1942 by the collaborationist Vichy government. Living conditions were harsh as Germany drained away food and manpower, Charles de Gaulle led the Free France movement that one-by-one took over the colonial empire, and coordinated the wartime Resistance. Following liberation in summer 1944, a Fourth Republic was established, France slowly recovered economically, and enjoyed a baby boom that reversed its very low fertility rate. Long wars in Indochina and Algeria drained French resources and ended in political defeat, in the wake of the Algerian Crisis of 1958, Charles de Gaulle set up the French Fifth Republic. Into the 1960s decolonization saw most of the French colonial empire become independent, while smaller parts were incorporated into the French state as overseas departments, since World War II France has been a permanent member in the UN Security Council and NATO. It played a role in the unification process after 1945 that led to the European Union

12.
Louis XIV of France
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Louis XIV, known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch of a country in European history. In the age of absolutism in Europe, Louis XIVs France was a leader in the centralization of power. Louis began his rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister. By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs, under his rule, the Edict of Nantes, which granted rights to Huguenots, was abolished. The revocation effectively forced Huguenots to emigrate or convert in a wave of dragonnades, which managed to virtually destroy the French Protestant minority. During Louis reign, France was the leading European power, and it fought three wars, the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg. There were also two lesser conflicts, the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions, warfare defined Louis XIVs foreign policies, and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled by a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique, in peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military, Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He was named Louis Dieudonné and bore the title of French heirs apparent. At the time of his birth, his parents had married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631, leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a miracle of God. Sensing imminent death, Louis XIII decided to put his affairs in order in the spring of 1643, in defiance of custom, which would have made Queen Anne the sole Regent of France, the king decreed that a regency council would rule on his sons behalf. His lack of faith in Queen Annes political abilities was his primary rationale and he did, however, make the concession of appointing her head of the council. Louis relationship with his mother was uncommonly affectionate for the time, contemporaries and eyewitnesses claimed that the Queen would spend all her time with Louis. Both were greatly interested in food and theatre, and it is likely that Louis developed these interests through his close relationship with his mother. This long-lasting and loving relationship can be evidenced by excerpts in Louis journal entries, such as, but attachments formed later by shared qualities of the spirit are far more difficult to break than those formed merely by blood

13.
France in the 20th century
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Alsace-Lorraine would be restored at the end of World War I. Unlike other European countries France did not experience a population growth in the mid and late 19th century. From a population of around 39 million in 1880, France still had only a population of 40 million in 1945, the post-war years would bring a massive baby boom, and with immigration, France reached 50 million in 1968. This growth slowed down in 1974, since 1999, France has seen an unprecedented growth in population. In 2004, population growth was 0. 68%, almost reaching North American levels, France is now well ahead of all other European countries in population growth and in 2003, Frances natural population growth was responsible for almost all the natural growth in European population. Today, France, with a population of 62 and a million, or 65 million including overseas territories, is the third most populous country of Europe, behind Russia. Immigration in the 20th century differed significantly from that of the previous century, the 1920s saw great influxes from Italy and Poland, in the 1930-50s immigrants came from Spain and Portugal. Since the 1960s however, the greatest waves of immigrants have been from former French colonies, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Mali, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam. Much of this recent immigration was initially economical, but many of these immigrants have remained in France, gained citizenship, estimates vary, but of the 60 million people living in France today, close to 4 million claim foreign origin. Eastern-European and North-African Jewish immigration to France largely began in the mid to late 19th century, in 1872, there was an estimated 86,000 Jews living in France, and by 1945 this would increase to 300,000. Many Jews integrated into French society, although French nationalism led to anti-Semitism in many quarters, since the 1960s, France has experienced a great deal of Jewish immigration from the Mediterranean and North Africa, and the Jewish population in France is estimated at around 600,000 today. By far the largest of these is Paris, at 2.1 million inhabitants, followed by Lille, Lyon, much of this urbanization takes place not in the traditional center of the cities, but in the suburbs that surround them. With immigration from countries, these cités have been the center of racial. Compounding the loss of regionalism is the role of the French capital, the post-war years saw the state take control of a number of French industries. The modern political climate has however been for increasing regional power, many French intellectuals welcomed the war to avenge the humiliation of defeat and loss of territory to Germany following the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. A pacifist, was assassinated at the start of the war, Prime Minister Rene Viviani called for unity—for a Union sacrée --Which was a wartime truce between the right and left factions that had been fighting bitterly. However, war-weariness was a factor by 1917, even reaching the army. The soldiers were reluctant to attack, Mutiny was a factor as soldiers said it was best to wait for the arrival of millions of Americans, the economy was hurt by the German invasion of major industrial areas in the northeast

France in the 20th century
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A French bayonet charge in World War I
France in the 20th century
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President Chirac and United States President George W. Bush talk over issues during the 27th G8 summit, July 21, 2001.

14.
French cuisine
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French cuisine consists of the cooking traditions and practices from France. In the 14th century Guillaume Tirel, a chef known as Taillevent, wrote Le Viandier. During that time, French cuisine was influenced by Italian cuisine. Cheese and wine are a part of the cuisine. They play different roles regionally and nationally, with many variations, gastro-tourism and the Guide Michelin helped to acquaint people with the rich bourgeois and peasant cuisine of the French countryside starting in the 20th century. Gascon cuisine has also had influence over the cuisine in the southwest of France. Many dishes that were once regional have proliferated in variations across the country, knowledge of French cooking has contributed significantly to Western cuisines. Its criteria are used widely in Western cookery school boards and culinary education, in November 2010, French gastronomy was added by the UNESCO to its lists of the worlds intangible cultural heritage. In French medieval cuisine, banquets were common among the aristocracy, multiple courses would be prepared, but served in a style called service en confusion, or all at once. Food was generally eaten by hand, meats being sliced off in large pieces held between the thumb and two fingers, the sauces were highly seasoned and thick, and heavily flavored mustards were used. Meals often ended with an issue de table, which changed into the modern dessert. The ingredients of the time varied according to the seasons and the church calendar, and many items were preserved with salt, spices, honey. Late spring, summer, and autumn afforded abundance, while winter meals were more sparse, livestock were slaughtered at the beginning of winter. Beef was often salted, while pork was salted and smoked, bacon and sausages would be smoked in the chimney, while the tongue and hams were brined and dried. Cucumbers were brined as well, while greens would be packed in jars with salt, fruits, nuts and root vegetables would be boiled in honey for preservation. Whale, dolphin and porpoise were considered fish, so during Lent, artificial freshwater ponds held carp, pike, tench, bream, eel, and other fish. Poultry was kept in yards, with pigeon and squab being reserved for the elite. Game was highly prized, but very rare, and included venison, wild boar, hare, rabbit, kitchen gardens provided herbs, including some, such as tansy, rue, pennyroyal, and hyssop, which are rarely used today

15.
Public holidays in France
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There are 11 official public holidays in France. The Alsace region and the Moselle department observe 2 additional days, most Asian countries and all North American countries observe between 2 and 10 more public holidays per year on weekdays. Public holidays in France are, See Fêtes et jours fériés en France, note, French law dictates that work should stop, but be paid, only for the Fête du Travail, except in industries where it is infeasible to stop working. The rest of the holidays are listed in statute law. In 2005, French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin removed Whit Mondays status as a public holiday, the decision was eventually overruled by French courts in 2008. Employers are free to decide whether to make Whit Monday a day off or not

16.
Religion in France
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France is a country where freedom of religion and freedom of thought are guaranteed by virtue of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The Republic is based on the principle of laïcité enforced by the 1880s Jules Ferry laws and the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches, while millions in France continue to attend religious services regularly, the overall level of observance is considerably lower than in the past. This makes France one of the more atheistic countries in the world, France guarantees freedom of religion as a constitutional right and the government generally respects this right in practice. Catholicism is the religion in France. During the Ancien Régime, France had traditionally considered the Churchs eldest daughter. This led to conflicts, in particular during the Reformation between Catholics and Huguenots. A strong Protestant population resided in France, primarily of Reformed confession and it was persecuted by the state for most of the time, with temporary periods of relative toleration. These wars continued throughout the 16th century, with the 1572 St. Bartholomews Day massacre as its apex, for the first time, Huguenots were considered by the state as more than mere schismatics and heretics. The Edict of Nantes thus opened a path for secularism and tolerance, Religious conflicts resumed in the end of the 17th century, when Louis XIV, the Sun King, initiated the persecution of Huguenots by introducing the dragonnades in 1681. These wave of violence intimidated the Protestants into converting to Catholicism and he made this policy official with the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes. On 17 January 1686, Louis XIV himself claimed that out of a Huguenot population of 800,000 to 900,000, a Camisard rebellion broke out in 1702 in the Cevennes mountains. The experiment of religious toleration in Europe was effectively ended for the time being, in practice, the revocation caused France to suffer a brain drain, as it lost a large number of skilled craftsmen, including key designers such as Daniel Marot. Some rulers, such as Frederick Wilhelm of Brandenburg, who issued the Edict of Potsdam, encouraged the Protestants to flee, during the French Revolution, the Catholic Church lost its power and influence. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed in 1790, put the Catholic Church under state control, while the clergy was persecuted by the commune of Paris and some of the representatives on mission, new religions and philosophies were allowed to compete with Catholicism. Following the Thermidorian Reaction the persecutions ceased but the schism between the French government and the Catholic Church wouldnt end until the Concordat of 1801 by Napoleon. After the Bourbon Restoration and the coming to power of the Ultra-royalists in the Chambre introuvable, under Villèles ultra-royalist government, the Chamber voted in the extreme 1830 Anti-Sacrilege Act. A1905 law instituted the separation of Church and State and prohibited the government from recognising, salarying or subsidising any religion, however the Briand-Ceretti Agreement subsequently restored for a while a formal role for the state in the appointment of Catholic bishops. For similar historical reasons, Catholic priests in French Guiana are civil servants of the local government, Religious buildings built prior to 1905 at taxpayers expense are retained by the local or national government, and may be used at no expense by religious organizations

17.
Literature of France
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This article is a general introduction to French literature. For detailed information on French literature in specific periods, see the separate historical articles in the template to the right. Literature written in French language, by citizens of nations such as Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco. As of 2006, French writers have been awarded more Nobel Prizes in Literature than novelists, poets and essayists of any other country, France itself ranks first in the list of Nobel Prizes in literature by country. French literature has been for French people an object of pride for centuries. The French language is a dialect derived from Latin and heavily influenced principally by Celtic. Today, French schools emphasize the study of novels, theater, the literary arts are heavily sponsored by the state and literary prizes are major news. The Académie française and the Institut de France are important linguistic and artistic institutions in France, Literature matters deeply to the people of France and plays an important role in their sense of identity. As of 2006, French literary people have been awarded more Nobel Prizes in Literature than novelists, poets and essayists of any other country, a writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form. For most of the 20th century, French authors had more Literature Nobel Prizes than those of any other nation. M. G, le Clézio 2014 – Patrick Modiano Grand Prix de Littérature Policière – created in 1948, for crime and detective fiction. Grand Prix du roman de lAcadémie française – created 1918, Prix Décembre – created in 1989. Prix Femina – created 1904, decided each year by an exclusively female jury, Prix Goncourt – created 1903, given to the author of the best and most imaginative prose work of the year. Prix Goncourt des Lycéens – created in 1987, Prix Littéraire Valery Larbaud – created in 1957. Prix Médicis – created 1958, awarded to an author whose fame does not yet match their talent, Prix Renaudot – created in 1926. Prix Tour-Apollo Award – 1972–1990, given to the best science fiction published in French during the preceding year. Prix des Deux Magots – created in 1933, a short history of French literature Burgwinkle, William, Nicholas Hammond, and Emma Wilson, eds. The Cambridge history of French literature Cobb, Richard, Promenades, an appreciation of modern French literature Harvey, Paul. The Oxford companion to French literature Denis Hollier, ed, a New History of French Literature, Harvard University Press,1989,1150 pp. France, Peter

18.
Music of France
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The music of France reflects a diverse array of styles. In the field of music, France has produced a number of prominent romantic composers, while folk and popular music have seen the rise of the chanson. The earliest known sound recording device in the world, the phonautograph, was patented in France by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1857. France is also the 5th largest market by value in the world, French music history dates back to organum in the 10th century, followed by the Notre Dame School, an organum composition style. By the end of the 12th century, a form of song called the motet arose, in the 14th century, France produced two notable styles of music, Ars Nova and Ars Subtilior. Burgundy, the mostly French-speaking area unified with the Kingdom of France in 1477 and this was followed by the rise of chansons and the Burgundian School. Influential composers included Louis Couperin, François Couperin and Jacques Champion de Chambonnières, Jean Philippe Rameau, a prominent opera composer, wrote an influential treatise on musical theory, especially in the subject of harmony, he also introduced the clarinet into his orchestras. In the late Renaissance and early Baroque period, a type of secular vocal music called Air de cour spread throughout France. The first French opera may be Akébar roi du Mogol, first performed in Carpentras in 1646 and his first was Cadmus from 1673. Lullys forays into operatic tragedy were accompanied by the pinnacle of French theatrical tragedy, led by Corneille and Racine. Lully also developed the beat patterns used by conductors to this day. The French composer, Georges Bizet, composed Carmen, one of the most well known, Claude Balbastre was an organist, harpsichordist and fortepianist. He was one of the most famous musicians of his time, henri-Montan Berton, son of Pierre, is principally remembered as a composer of operas, most of which were first performed at the Opéra-Comique. Chélard earned his living for much of his career as a violist at the Paris Opera and his 1827 opera Macbeth was a flop in Paris, but a great success in Munich. Jeanne-Hippolyte Devismes married the director of the Paris Opéra and her only known works are a song, La Dame Jacinthe, and an opera, Praxitėle, which was a success and ran for 16 performances. Harpsichordist and composer Jacques Duphly contributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau dictionary, for articles relating to the art of playing the harpsichord, one of the major French composers of the time, and one of the most innovative composers of the early Romantic era, was Hector Berlioz. In the late 19th century, pioneers such as Georges Bizet, Jules Massenet, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel, the last two had an enormous impact on 20th-century music - both in France and abroad - and influenced many major composers such as Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky. Erik Satie was also a significant composer from that era

19.
Monument historique
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The term monument historique is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. Both public and privately owned structures may be listed in this way, as of 2012 there were 44,236 monuments listed. Buildings may be given the classification for both their exteriors or interiors, including a buildings décor, its furniture, a single room, or even a staircase. An example is the Monument Historique classification of the décor in the café Deux Garçons in Aix-en-Provence whose patrons once included Alphonse de Lamartine, Émile Zola, since the 1990s, a significant number of places have been given the designation because of their historical importance to science. The MH designation traces its roots to the French Revolution when the government appointed Alexandre Lenoir to specify, though the first classifications were given in the 19th century by the writer Prosper Mérimée, inspector-general of historical monuments, by a first list established in 1840. In 1851, Mérimée organized the Missions Héliographiques to document Frances medieval architecture, a monument historique may be marked by the official logo of the Union REMPART, a French historical restoration association. It consists of a representing the labyrinth that used to be in Reims Cathedral. Use of the logo is optional and these two levels of protection are determined after a thorough historical study by the préfet for the région, or by the Minister of Culture for the national level. They are aided by the advice of a commission named Commission régionale du patrimoine et des sites, many of the Châteaux of the Loire Valley carry the MH designation as do the renowned gardens at Château de Villandry. Prosper Mérimée 1803-1870 The monuments historiques inspector Prosper Mérimée established the first list of monuments classés in 1840, rules and regulations on monuments historiques Monumental parks and monuments historiques in need of work Les Monuments Historiques de la France, bulletin trimestriel. Paris, Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques

20.
List of World Heritage Sites in France
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This is a list of World Heritage Sites in France with properties of cultural and natural heritage in France as inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage List or as on the countrys tentative list. Currently, forty-one properties in France are inscribed on the World Heritage List, thirty-seven of these are cultural properties, three are natural properties, and one is mixed. The first was added to the list in 1979 and the latest in 2015, five properties were submitted in 1979. The tentative list of France contains 37 properties, the names in the tables below are the names of the properties as used on the website of UNESCO. There are three different types of possible, cultural, natural, and mixed. Selection criteria i, ii, iii, iv, v, and vi are the criteria, and selection criteria vii, viii, ix. The dates for the properties on the World Heritage List are the dates of inscription, the numbers are the reference numbers as used by UNESCO, and they link directly to the description pages of the properties on the UNESCO website. Property names as submitted by France and year of inscription on Tentative List, translation of site names provided in italics for reference purposes, official translation of site name proposed only once site is put forward for consideration on World Heritage List. Carnac megalithic sites Cathédrale de Saint-Denis,1996, Saint-Denis Cathedral Rouen, ensemble urbain à pans de bois, cathédrale, église Saint-Ouen, église Saint Maclou,1996. Rouen, timber-framed urban area, Rouen Cathedral, Basilica of Saint Ouen, Vaux-le-Vicomte Castle Les villes bastionnées des Pays-Bas du nord-ouest de lEurope,1996. Fortified cities of the Low Countries of north-western Europe Le massif forestier de Fontainebleau,1996, forest of Fontainebleau Montagne Sainte-Victoire et sites cézaniens,1996. Mount Saint Victoire and Paul Cézanne sites Ensemble de grottes à concrétions du Sud de la France,2000, concretion cave complexes in southern France Parc national de la Vanois,2000. Vanois National Park Massif du Mont Blanc,2000, the Camargue Bouches de Bonifacio,2002. Straight of Bonifacio Parc national des Écrins,2002, Écrins National Park Parc national de Port-Cros,2002. Port Cros National Park Marais salants de Guérande,2002, Guérande salt marshes Le rivage méditerranéen des Pyrénées,2002. Mediterranean shore of the Pyrenees Mountains Rade de Marseille,2002, bay of Marseille Les villes antiques de la Narbonnaise et leur territoire, Nîmes, Arles, Glanum, aqueducts, via Domitia,2002. Roman Narbonensian cities and area, Nîmes, Arles, Glanum, aqueducts, Cerdagne railway Office National dÉtudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales, Meudon,2002. National Aerospace Research Centre, Meudon Hangar Y,2002, Hangar Y Ancienne chocolaterie Menier à Noisiel,2002

List of World Heritage Sites in France
List of World Heritage Sites in France
List of World Heritage Sites in France

21.
Gallo-Romance languages
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The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes sensu stricto the Oïl languages and the Franco-Provençal language. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Rhaeto-Romance, Occitano-Romance, the Gallo-Romance group includes, The Langues doïl, or Oïl languages. These include Standard French, Picard, Walloon, Lorrain and Normand, Poitevin and these are the most phonologically innovative Romance varieties. The Arpitan language, also known as Franco-Provençal, of southeastern France, western Switzerland and it shares features of both French and the Provençal dialect of Occitan. Other language families which are included in the Gallo-Romance, The Rhaeto-Romance languages, including Romansh of Switzerland, Ladin of the Dolomites area. Rhaeto-Romance can be classified as Gallo-Romance, or as a branch of the Western Romance languages, Rhaeto-Romance is a diverse group, with the Italian varieties influenced by Venetan and Italian and Romansh by Franco-Provençal. The Occitano-Romance languages of Southern France and neighbouring areas, includes Occitan and Catalan, Occitano-Romance can be classified as Gallo-Romance, Iberian Romance, or as a branch of the Western Romance languages. The Occitan language, or langue doc, has such as Provençal. The Catalan language has standard forms of Catalan and Valencian, in general however, modern Catalan, especially grammatically, remains closer to modern Occitan than to either Spanish or Portuguese. They include Piedmontese, Ligurian, Western and Eastern Lombard, Emilian, Romagnol, Gallo-Italic of Sicily, Gallo-Italic can be classified as Gallo-Romance, Italo-Dalmatian, or as a branch of the Western Romance languages. Ligurian retains the final -o, being the exception in Gallo-Romance, how far the Gallo-Romance languages spread varies a great deal depending on which languages are included in the group. Today, a single Gallo-Romance language dominates much of this region and has also spread overseas. At its broadest, the area also encompasses southern France, Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic islands in eastern Spain, the Gallo-Romance languages are generally considered the most innovative among the Romance languages. Characteristic Gallo-Romance features generally developed earliest and appear in their most extreme manifestation in the langue doïl, gradually spreading out from there along riverways, Gallo-Romance languages are usually characterised by the loss of all unstressed final vowels other than /-a/. However, when the loss of a final vowel would result in an impossible final cluster, generally, the same changes also occurred in final syllables closed by a consonant. Elsewhere, final vowel loss occurred later or unprotected /t/ was lost earlier, for example, French sain, saint, sein, ceint, seing meaning healthy, holy, breast, girds, signature are all pronounced /sɛ̃/. In other ways, however, the Gallo-Romance languages are conservative, in the opposite of the normal pattern, the languages closest to the oïl epicentre preserve the case system the best, and languages at the periphery lost it early. The Occitan group is known for an innovatory /ɡ/ ending on many subjunctive and preterite verbs and a development of

Gallo-Romance languages
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Historical area of development for strict Gallo-Romance (Oïl languages and Arpitan).

22.
Occitan
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Occitan, also known as lenga dòc by its native speakers, is a Romance language. It is spoken in southern France, Italys Occitan Valleys, Monaco, and Spains Val dAran, collectively, Occitan is also spoken in the linguistic enclave of Guardia Piemontese. However, there is controversy about the unity of the language, others include Catalan in this family, as the distance between this language and some Occitan dialects is similar to the distance among different Occitan dialects. In fact, Catalan was considered an Occitan dialect until the end of the 19th century, today, Occitan is an official language in Catalonia, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken in the Val dAran. Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be the preferred language for use in the Val dAran. Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, there is no written standard language called Occitan. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal, There are also significant lexical differences, where some dialects have words cognate with French, and others have Catalan and Spanish cognates. Nonetheless, there is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility, the long-term survival of Occitan is in grave doubt. According to the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages, four of the six dialects of Occitan are considered severely endangered. The name Occitan comes from lenga dòc, òc being the Occitan word for yes and this was not, of course, the only defining characteristic of each group. The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc, while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud, Old Catalan, and now the Catalan of Northern Catalonia also have hoc. Other Romance languages derive their word for yes from the Latin sic, thus, etc. such as Spanish sí, Eastern Lombard sé, Sicilian and Italian sì, or Portuguese sim. French uses si to answer yes in response to questions that are asked in the negative sense, the name Occitan is sometimes considered a neologism, however, it was attested around 1300 as occitanus, a crossing of oc and aquitanus. For many centuries, the Occitan dialects were referred to as Limousin or Provençal, after Frédéric Mistrals Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan. The term first came into fashion in Italy, currently, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitania, keeping the name Occitan for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal, NO·L LI TOLRÀ NO·L LI DEVEDARÀ NI NO LEN DECEBRÀ. Nec societatem non AURÀ, si per castellum recuperare NON O FA, et si recuperare potuerit in potestate Froterio et Raimundo LO TORNARÀ, carolingian litanies, both written and sung in Latin, were answered to in Old Occitan by the audience. Occitan was the vehicle for the poetry of the medieval troubadours and trobairises, At that time

Occitan
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Main cities of Occitania, written in the Occitan language
Occitan
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Occitan
Occitan
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"Speak French, Be Clean" written across the wall of a Southern French school
Occitan
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This bilingual street sign in Toulouse, like many such signs found in historical parts of the city, is maintained primarily for its antique charm; it is typical of what little remains of the lenga d'òc in southern French cities.

23.
Belgium
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie

24.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed

25.
Italy
–
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world

26.
Language policy in France
–
France has one official language, the French language. The French government does not regulate the choice of language in publications by individuals, the perceived threat from anglicisation has prompted efforts to safeguard the position of the French language in France. Besides French, there exist many other minority languages of France. These languages are recognized by article 75-1 of the French constitution, in France proper, Corsican, Breton, Gallo, Basque, Franco-Provençal, Occitan, and Catalan have an official status in the regions where they are spoken. The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts of 1539 made French the administrative language of the kingdom of France for legal documents, previously, official documents were written in medieval Latin, which was the language used by the Roman Catholic Church. Its recommendations however carry no legal power and are sometimes disregarded even by governmental authorities, in recent years the Académie has tried to prevent the Anglicisation of the French language. Prior to the French Revolution of 1789, French kings did not take a position on the language spoken by their subjects. However, in sweeping away the old provinces, parlements and laws, other languages were seen as keeping the peasant masses in obscurantism. The new idea was expounded in the Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois, the lack of ability of the population to understand the language in which were the political debates and the administrative documents was then seen as antidemocratic. The report resulted the same year in two laws which stated that the only tolerated in France in public life and in schools would be French. Within two years, the French language had become the symbol of the unity of the French State. However, the Revolutionaries lacked both time and money to implement a language policy, the only language allowed in primary school was French. All other languages were forbidden, even in the schoolyard, after 1918, the use of German in Alsace-Lorraine was outlawed. In 1925, Anatole de Monzie, Minister of public education, stated that for the unity of France. In neighbouring Belgium, a policy to expand the use of standard French also took place. The 1950s were also the first time the French state recognised the right of the languages to exist. A law allowed for the teaching of languages in secondary schools. The Breton language began to appear in the media during this time, the French government allowed in 1964 for the first time one and a half minutes of Breton on regional television

Language policy in France
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French / Occitan bilingual signs in Limousin.
Language policy in France
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This roadsign in Corsica has had the non-Corsican placenames defaced by FLNC supporters

27.
Bernard Cerquiglini
–
Bernard Cerquiglini, is a French linguist. In 1995 Bernard Cerquiglini joined the Oulipo and he was in charge of a governmental studies on a French orthography reform and about national languages in France. He received the title Doctor Honoris Causa at ULIM, cerquiglinis Eloge de la variante, marks the beginning of the scholarly paradigm referred to as The New Medievalism, which was critical of modernist positivist editorial practices for medieval texts. However, his claim that hilology is a bourgeois, paternalist, and hygienist system of thought about the family, it cherishes filiation, tracks down adulterers, and is afraid of contamination. Currently, he is in charge the Center for French and Francophone Studies in the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and he also presents the short linguistic program called Merci professeur. On TV5, the French-language global television network

Bernard Cerquiglini
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Bernard Cerquiglini (2009)

28.
Constitutional Council of France
–
The Constitutional Council is the highest constitutional authority in France. It was established by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958 and this article refers extensively to individual articles in the Constitution of France. The reader should refer to the translation of the Constitution on the site of the French National Assembly. Another recommended reading is the Constitutional Council overview on the Council web site, the Government of France consists of an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. For historical reasons there has long been a hostility to having anything resembling a Supreme Court—that is, whether the Council is a court is a subject of academic discussion, but some scholars consider it the supreme court of France. Article 34 of the Constitution exhaustively lists the areas reserved for statute law, any regulation issued by the executive in the areas constitutionally reserved for statute law is unconstitutional unless it has been authorized as secondary legislation by a statute. Any citizen with an interest in the case can obtain the cancellation of these regulations by the Council of State, furthermore, the Council of State can quash regulations on grounds that they violate existing statute law, constitutional rights or the general principles of law. In addition, new acts can be referred to the Constitutional Council by a petition just prior to being signed into law by the President of the Republic. The most common circumstance for this is that 60 opposition members of the National Assembly, if the Prime Minister thinks that some clauses of existing statute law instead belong to the domain of regulations, he can also ask the Council to reclassify these clauses as regulations. Traditionally, France refused to accept the idea that courts could quash legislation enacted by Parliament, French courts were then prohibited from making rulings of a general nature. Yet, in the late 20th century, courts, especially courts, began applying the consequences of international treaties, including law of the European Union. A2009 reform, effective on 1 March 2010, enables parties to a lawsuit or trial to question the constitutionality of the law that is being applied to them, the supreme court collects such referrals and submits them to the Constitutional Council. If the Constitutional Council rules a law to be unconstitutional, this law is struck down from the law books, the Council has two main areas of power, The first is the supervision of elections, both presidential and parliamentary and ensuring the legitimacy of referendums. They issue the official results, they ensure proper conduct and fairness, the Council is the supreme authority in these matters. The Council can declare an election to be invalid if improperly conducted, or if the elected candidate used illegal methods, the second area of Council power is the interpretation of the fundamental meanings of the constitution, procedure, legislation, and treaties. It also may declare laws to be in contravention of treaties which France has signed and their declaring that a law is contrary to constitutional or treaty dispositions renders it invalid. The Council also may impose reservations as to the interpretation of certain provisions in statutes, the decisions of the Council are binding on all authorities. In some cases, examination of laws by the Council is compulsory, organic bills, those which fundamentally affect government and treaties, need to be assessed by the Council before they are considered ratified

Constitutional Council of France
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Pediment above the entrance to the offices of the Constitutional Council
Constitutional Council of France
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The 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
Constitutional Council of France
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Palais Royal entrance to the Constitutional Council from Rue de Montpensier

29.
Nobel Prize in Literature
–
Though individual works are sometimes cited as being particularly noteworthy, here work refers to an authors work as a whole. The Swedish Academy decides who, if anyone, will receive the prize in any given year, the academy announces the name of the chosen laureate in early October. Although the Nobel Prize in Literature has become the worlds most prestigious literature prize, many authors who have won the prize have fallen into obscurity, while others rejected by the jury remain widely studied and read. The prize has become seen as a political one - a peace prize in literary disguise, whose judges are prejudiced against authors with different political tastes to them. Tim Parks has expressed skepticism that it is possible for Swedish professors, as of 2016,16 of the 113 recipients have been of Scandinavian origin. The Academy has often been alleged to be biased towards European, Nobels vague wording for the criteria for the prize has led to recurrent controversy. In the original Swedish, the word translates as either idealistic or ideal. The Nobel Committees interpretation has varied over the years, in recent years, this means a kind of idealism championing human rights on a broad scale. Though Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last was written a little over a year before he died, Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets,31 million Swedish kronor, to establish and endow the five Nobel Prizes. Due to the level of surrounding the will, it was not until 26 April 1897 that the Storting approved it. The executors of his will were Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that were to award the Peace Prize were appointed shortly after the will was approved. The prize-awarding organisations followed, the Karolinska Institutet on 7 June, the Swedish Academy on 9 June, the Nobel Foundation then reached an agreement on guidelines for how the Nobel Prize should be awarded. In 1900, the Nobel Foundations newly created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II, according to Nobels will, the Royal Swedish Academy was to award the Prize in Literature. Each year, the Swedish Academy sends out requests for nominations of candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature and it is not permitted to nominate oneself. Thousands of requests are sent out each year, and as of 2011 about 220 proposals are returned and these proposals must be received by the Academy by 1 February, after which they are examined by the Nobel Committee. By April, the Academy narrows the field to around twenty candidates, by May, a short list of five names is approved by the Committee. The subsequent four months are spent in reading and reviewing the works of the five candidates. In October, members of the Academy vote and the candidate who receives more than half of the votes is named the Nobel laureate in Literature

Nobel Prize in Literature
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Announcement of the Nobel Prize laureate in literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
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In 1901, Frenchpoet and essayistSully Prudhomme (1839–1907) was the first person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect."
Nobel Prize in Literature
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French author Albert Camus was the first African-born writer to receive the award.

30.
Jack Lang (French politician)
–
Jack Mathieu Émile Lang is a French politician. A member of the Socialist Party, he served as Frances Minister of Culture from 1981 to 1986 and 1988 to 1992 and he was also the Mayor of Blois from 1989 to 2000. He served until 2012 in the National Assembly from the district of Pas-de-Calais. Jack Lang was born to Roger Lang and Marie-Luce Bouchet in Mirecourt and his fathers family were a secular, assimilated, well-to-do Jewish family based in Nancy. Roger Lang was the manager of the family business which was founded by Jacks grandfather Albert. Roger and Albert were both freemasons, Jacks mother, Marie-Luce Bouchet, a Catholic, was born in 1919 as the daughter of Emile Bouchet, who died in 1926, and Berthe Boulanger, a nurse who was also a freemason. In 1938 Albert and Roger sent their wives to Vichy because of the threat of war with Germany, after the German invasion, Albert Lang and his wife moved to Brive la Gaillarde in Corrèze. The very young Jack and his mother went to stay with his grandmother in Cholet. His father Roger was first mobilized in Luneville, and then joined his parents, Jack and his mother also joined them in Brive after the bombing of Bordeaux. Roger Lang was nevertheless placed under house arrest, Berthe Bouchet visited the Langs in April 1942 when her daughter was about to give birth to her third child, Marianne. In 1943 Berthe was arrested in Nancy by the Gestapo for acts of propaganda and she was deported to Ravensbrück and died in the spring of 1945. Jack Lang studied political science at the Institut dÉtudes Politiques de Paris and his career then focused on a combination of teaching and culture and the arts. He was the founder and producer of Festival du Monde in Nancy, was director of the Nancy University Theatre from 1963 to 1972, at the same time he was a professor of international law from 1971 to 1981. He married Monique Buczynski in 1961, in 1997 he was President of Jury to the 47th Berlin International Film Festival. Lang entered politics as a Socialist member of the French National Assembly from Paris in 1977 and he is best known for having served as Minister of Culture and as Minister of Education. In 1981, while Minister of Culture, he created the Fête de la Musique, a celebration of music held on 21 June each year. He is the co-founder and president of the Union of the Theatres of Europe, in August 1981, he created the Lang Law, which allows publishers to enforce a minimum sale price for books. Lang was a Member of the European Parliament from 1994 to 1997, in 2000 he stood unsuccessfully for Mayor of Paris

Jack Lang (French politician)
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Jack Lang

31.
Norman language
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Norman is a Romance language which can be classified as one of the Oïl languages along with Picard and Walloon. The name Norman-French is sometimes used to not only the Norman language. For the most part, the forms of Norman and modern French are intercomprehensible. Norman is spoken in mainland Normandy in France where it has no official status and it is taught in a few colleges near Cherbourg-Octeville. In the Channel Islands, the Norman language has developed separately, Jèrriais and Guernésiais are recognized as regional languages by the British and Irish governments within the framework of the British–Irish Council. Sercquiais is in fact a descendant of the 16th century Jèrriais used by the colonists from Jersey who settled the then uninhabited island. The last first language speakers of Auregnais, the dialect of Norman spoken on Alderney, died during the 20th century, the dialect of Herm also lapsed, at an unknown date. An isogloss termed the Joret line separates the northern and southern dialects of the Norman language, there are also dialectal differences between western and eastern dialects. Three different standardized spellings are used, continental Norman, Jèrriais and these represent the different developments and particular literary histories of the varieties of Norman. Norman may therefore be described as a pluricentric language, the Anglo-Norman dialect of Norman was a language of administration in England following the Norman conquest of England in 1066. This left a legacy of Law French in the language of English courts, in Ireland, Norman remained strongest in the area of south-east Ireland, where the Hiberno-Normans invaded in 1169. Norman is still in use for very formal legal purposes in the UK, such as when the monarch gives Royal Assent to an Act of Parliament using the phrase. The Norman conquest of southern Italy also brought the language to Sicily and the part of the Italian Peninsula. See, Norman French and French influence on Sicilian, literature in Norman ranges from early Anglo-Norman literature through the 19th-century Norman literary renaissance to modern writers. Today, the Norman language is strongest in the accessible areas of the former Duchy of Normandy, the Channel Islands and the Cotentin Peninsula in the west. In time, the communities converged, so that Normandy continued to form the name of the region while the original Normans became assimilated by the Gallo-Romance people, later when conquering England, the Norman rulers in England would eventually assimilate, thereby adopting the speech of the local English. However, in cases, the élites contributed elements of their own language to the newly enriched languages that developed in the territories. In Normandy, the new Norman language inherited vocabulary from Old Norse, the influence on phonology is more disputed, although it is argued that the retention of aspirated /h/ and /k/ in Norman is due to Norse influence

Norman language
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A bar named in Norman
Norman language
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Areas where the Norman language is strongest include Jersey, Guernsey, the Cotentin and the Pays de Caux.

32.
Picard language
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Picard is a language or a set of languages closely related to French, and as such is one of the larger group of Romance languages. It is spoken in one region in the far north of France and in parts of the Belgian region of Wallonia, the district of Tournai, Picard is known by several different names. Linguists group all of them under the name Picard, in general, the variety spoken in Picardy is understood by speakers in Nord-Pas-de-Calais and vice versa. Belgiums French Community gave full recognition to Picard as a regional language along with Walloon, Gaumais, Champenois. The French government has not followed suit and has not recognized Picard as a regional language, Picard, like French, is one of the langues doïl and belongs to the Gallo-Roman family of languages. It consists of all the used for writing in the north of France from before 1000. Often, the langues doïl are referred to simply as Old French, Picard is phonetically quite different from the central langues doïl, which evolved into modern French. Picard gambe ~ Old French jambe, from *gambe, absence of palatalization of /ɡ/ in Picard before tonic /a/, there are striking differences, such as Picard cachier ~ Old French chacier, which later took the modern French form of chasser. Because of the proximity of Paris to the northernmost regions of France, French greatly influenced Picard, the closeness between Picard and French made the former not always be recognised as a language in its own right, as opposed to a distortion of French as it is often viewed. Picard includes a variety of closely related dialects. The varieties are defined by specific phonetic, morphological and lexical traits, the majority of Picard words derive from Vulgar Latin. Many words are similar to French, but a large number are totally specific to Picard - principally terms relating to mining or farming. Here are several phrases in Picard, accompanied by French and English translations. Jai pris ma bêche pour aller bêcher mon jardin, I took my spade to go dig my garden. Mi, à quate heures, jarchine eune bonne tartine, moi, à quatre heures, je mange une bonne tartine. At four oclock, I eat a good snack, quind un Chti mi iest à lagonie, savez vous bin che qui li rind la vie. Quand un gars du Nord est à lagonie, savez-vous bien ce qui lui rend la vie, when a northerner is dying, do you know what revives him. Il ne faut pas que les poules chantent plus fort que le coq, hens must not sing louder than the rooster J min vo à chlofe, lo qui npasse poin dcaroche

Picard language
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Picard language signage in Cayeux-sur-Mer
Picard language
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The geographical spread of Picard and Chtimi among the Oïl languages (other than French) can be seen in shades of green and yellow on this map.

33.
Languages of Italy
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There are a large number of local languages spoken in Italy, most of which are indigenous evolutions of Vulgar Latin, and thus are classified as Romance languages. The official and most widely spoken language is Italian, a descendant of Tuscan and this is generally not the case in regards to the languages of Italy, as they are, for the most part, not varieties of Standard Italian. In fact, Standard Italian is itself either a continuation of, or a dialect heavily based on, there are several minority languages that belong to other Indo-European branches, such as Cimbrian, Arbëresh, the Slavomolisano dialect of Serbo-Croatian, and Griko. Other non-indigenous languages are spoken by a percentage of the population due to immigration. The following minority languages are recognized as historical language minorities by the Law no. 482/1999, Albanian, Catalan, German, Greek, Slovene, Croatian, French, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin, the selection of those varieties to the exclusion of numerous others is a matter of some controversy. The law also makes a distinction between those who are considered minority groups and those who are not, the original Italian Constitution does not explicitly express that Italian is the official national language. Code for civil procedure – In tutto il processo è prescritto luso della lingua italiana, code for criminal procedure – Gli atti del procedimento penale sono compiuti in lingua italiana. Article 1 of law 482/1999 – La lingua ufficiale della Repubblica è litaliano, aosta Valley, French is co-official in the whole region, German is unofficial but recognised in the Lys Valley. Campania, Neapolitan is promoted, but not recognised, by the region, friuli-Venezia Giulia, Friulian and Slovene are promoted, but not recognised, by the region. Piedmont, Piedmontese is unofficial but recognised as the language, the region promotes, without recognising. Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, German is co-official in the province of South Tyrol, Ladin, Cimbrian and Mòcheno are unofficial, veneto, Venetian is unofficial but recognised. According to the UNESCOs Atlas of the Worlds Languages in Danger, the degree of endangerment is classified in different categories ranging from safe to extinct. The source for the distribution is the Atlas of the Worlds Languages in Danger unless otherwise stated. 30 settlements in northern Calabria as well as San Costantino Albanese and San Paolo Lucano in southern Basilicata, settlements in southern Calabria, all living languages indigenous to Italy are part of the Indo-European language family. The source is the SILs Ethnologue unless otherwise stated, language classification can be a controversial issue, when a classification is contested by academic sources, this is reported in the notes column. They can be divided into Romance languages and non-Romance languages, not included is Corsican, which is mainly spoken on the French island of Corsica. Istriot is only spoken in Croatia, Sardinian is a distinct language group with significant phonological and morphological differences among its varieties

34.
Languages of Monaco
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The official language of Monaco is French. In addition, there are other languages spoken, including Monégasque. French is the only official—and by far the most common—language in Monaco, a result of the role France has had over the microstate, since the annexation of Nice, Monégasque is the traditional national language of the Monegasque people. It is a dialect of Ligurian, and is similar to Italian. Because the Monégasques are only a minority in Monaco, their tongue was threatened with extinction in the 1970s, however, the language is now being taught in schools. In the old part of Monaco, the signs are marked with Monégasque in addition to French. During his accession ceremonies in 2005, Albert II, Prince of Monaco, standard Italian is also a major language in Monaco. Italian nationals make up 19% of the total population, Italian was the ancestral language of the ruling House of Grimaldi, and was the official language of Monaco when it was a protectorate of the Kingdom of Sardinia from 1815 to 1861. Italian is also spoken by Caroline, Princess of Hanover and her children Andrea Casiraghi, Charlotte Casiraghi Pierre Casiraghi, there is also an Anglophone community in Monaco, in addition to English-speaking tourists visiting the city. Princess Grace was born an American, and all three of her children grew up speaking English among other languages, occitan has also traditionally been spoken in Monaco, particularly when it covered a larger geographical territory, but is rarely used today. Outline of Monaco History of Monaco

Languages of Monaco
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A bilingual French-Monégasque street sign

35.
Germanic languages
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It is the third most spoken Indo-European subdivision, behind Italic and Indo-Iranian, and ahead of Balto-Slavic languages. Limburgish varieties have roughly 1.3 million speakers along the Dutch–Belgian–German border, the main North Germanic languages are Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese, which have a combined total of about 20 million speakers. The East Germanic branch included Gothic, Burgundian, and Vandalic, the last to die off was Crimean Gothic, spoken in the late 18th century in some isolated areas of Crimea. The total number of Germanic languages throughout history is unknown, as some of them—especially East Germanic languages—disappeared during or after the Migration Period. Proto-Germanic, along all of its descendants, is characterized by a number of unique linguistic features. Early varieties of Germanic enter history with the Germanic tribes moving south from Scandinavia in the 2nd century BC, to settle in the area of todays northern Germany, furthermore, it is the de facto language of the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. It is also a language in Nicaragua and Malaysia. German is a language of Austria, Belgium, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland and has regional status in Italy, Poland, Namibia. German also continues to be spoken as a minority language by immigrant communities in North America, South America, Central America, Mexico, a German dialect, Pennsylvania Dutch, is still present amongst Anabaptist populations in Pennsylvania in the United States. Dutch is a language of Aruba, Belgium, Curaçao. The Netherlands also colonised Indonesia, but Dutch was scrapped as a language after Indonesian independence. Dutch was until 1925 an official language in South Africa, but evolved in and was replaced by Afrikaans, Afrikaans is one of the 11 official languages in South Africa and is a lingua franca of Namibia. It is used in other Southern African nations as well, low German is a collection of sometimes very diverse dialects spoken in the northeast of the Netherlands and northern Germany. Scots is spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster, frisian is spoken among half a million people who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. Luxembourgish is mainly spoken in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, though it extends into small parts of Belgium, France. Limburgish varieties are spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland regions, along the Dutch–Belgian–German border, Swedish is also one of the two official languages in Finland, along with Finnish, and the only official language in the Åland Islands. Danish is also spoken natively by the Danish minority in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, Norwegian is the official language of Norway. Icelandic is the language of Iceland, and is spoken by a significant minority in the Faroe Islands

Germanic languages
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Countries where a Germanic language is the first language of the majority of the population

36.
French Flemish
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French Flemish is a West Flemish dialect spoken in the north of contemporary France. Place names attest to Flemish having been spoken since the 8th century in the area that was ceded to France in the 17th century, french-Flemish has about 20,000 daily users, and twice that number of occasional speakers. The languages status appears to be moribund, but there has been an active movement to retain French Flemish in the region. French Flemish is taught in a few schools in the French Westhoek, the ANVT-ILRF was given permission to carry out experimental lessons in four public schools for the school years of 2007-08 until 2010-11, after which it would be evaluated. Afterwards, all requirements were met but it was allowed to continue them. On the other hand, the private Catholic education began teaching Dutch in collèges in Gravelines, though generally seen as a dialect of Dutch, some of its speakers prefer to call it a regional language. Jean-Paul Couché, chairman of the Akademie voor Nuuze Vlaemsche Taele, argues, Linguistically and that does not apply to French Flemish. We are not connected to standard Dutch because it is a language that was created based on the dialects of North Holland. Research shows that the distance between French Flemish and Dutch is greater than that between Dutch and German

French Flemish
–
Historic regression of Dutch in the Western periphery. The blue line indicates the situation in the 7th-8th century; the red line marks the situation during the 20th century; the black line is the current French-Belgian border.

37.
Saintongeais
–
Although many of the same words are used in both Charente départements, they differ in many respects, i. e. in what they mean or in how they are pronounced. Saintongeais has significantly influenced the Acadian and Cajun dialects of French spoken in the United States, however, Québécois has been influenced by three dialects of langues doïl, Norman, Francien and Saintongeais. Today, Saintongeais is no longer widely spoken except in the countryside and it is still used in shows, magazines, and radio. Some words from Saintongeais are still used in the region, words like since are so widespread that they can be wrongly considered to be French. Along with French, Saintongeais is used in the magazine Xaintonge, country doctor Athanase Jean also wrote several plays in the dialect and helped promote the Saintonge culture

Saintongeais
–
Linguistic area of Saintongeais the Charentes and the Northern part of Gironde

38.
Vivaroalpenc
–
Vivaro-Alpine is a variety of Occitan spoken in southeastern France and northwestern Italy. There is also a small Vivaro-Alpine enclave in the Guardia Piemontese, Calabria and it belongs to the Northern Occitan dialect block, along with Auvergnat and Limousin. Vivaro-Alpine had been considered as a sub-dialect of Provençal, and named provençal alpin or Northern Provençal and its use in the Dauphiné area has also led to the use of dauphinois or dauphinois alpin to name it. Along with Ronjat and Bec, it is now recognized as a dialect of its own. The UNESCO Atlas of Worlds languages in danger uses the Alpine Provençal name, western, Vivarodaufinenc or Vivaro-Dauphinois near northern Vivarais, northeastern Velay, a southern fringe of Forez, Drôme department and a fringe in southern Isère department. Eastern, Alpine or Alpenc, Aupenc, in the Occitan Alps, gavòt or Gavot in the western Occitan Alps, which are located in France, around Digne, Sisteron, Gap, Barcelonnette and the upper County of Nice. Cisalpine or Eastern Alpine in the eastern Occitan Alps AKA Occitan Valleys, which are located in Italy

Vivaroalpenc
–
A map of the Vivaro-Alpine dialect in the Occitan language area.

39.
Bressan language
–
Franco-Provençal, Arpitan or Romand is a Gallo-Romance language spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland, northwestern Italy, and in enclaves in the Province of Foggia in Apulia, Italy. Franco-Provençal has several dialects and is separate from but closely related to neighboring Romance languages, Oïl languages, Occitan, Gallo-Italian. The name Franco-Provençal was given to the language by G. I, Ascoli in the 19th century because it shared features with French and Provençal without belonging to either. Arpitan, a neologism, is becoming a name for the language. This name was popularized due to the lands where the Arpitan language is spoken or used to be the prevalent idiom, the name for the region comes from the term Arpes, meaning Alps in Arpitan. Today, the largest number of Franco-Provençal speakers reside in the Aosta Valley, the language is also spoken in alpine valleys in the province of Turin, two isolated towns in Foggia, and rural areas of the Romandie region of Switzerland. It is one of the three Gallo-Romance language families of France and is recognized as a regional language of France. Organizations are attempting to preserve it through cultural events, education, scholarly research, aside from regional French dialects, it is the most closely related language to French. The number of speakers of Franco-Provençal has been declining significantly, according to UNESCO, Franco-Provençal is a potentially endangered language in Italy and an endangered language in Switzerland and France. Franco-Provençal emerged as a Gallo-Romance variety of Latin, the linguistic region comprises east-central France, western portions of Switzerland, and the Aosta Valley of Italy with the adjacent alpine valleys of the Piedmont. This area covers territories once occupied by pre-Roman Celts, including the Allobroges, Sequani, Helvetii, Ceutrones, by the 5th century, the region was controlled by the Burgundians. Franco-Provençal is first attested in manuscripts from the 12th century, possibly diverging from the langues doïl as early as the 8th–9th centuries, one writer has detected the influence of Basque by analyzing fossil words from toponymy and the dialect in the Aosta Valley Valdôtain patois. However, Franco-Provençal is consistently typified by a strict, myopic comparison to French, and so is characterized as conservative. Thus, commentators, like Désormaux, consider medieval the terms for many nouns and verbs, including pâta rag, bayâ to give, moussâ to lie down, all of which are conservative only relative to French. As an example, Désormaux, writing on this point in the foreword of his Savoyard dialect dictionary, states, one can note it not only in phonetics and morphology, but also in the vocabulary, where one finds numerous words and directions that clearly disappeared from French. Franco-Provençal failed to garner the prestige of its three more widely spoken neighbors, French, Occitan, and Italian. Communities where speakers lived were generally mountainous and isolated from one another, the internal boundaries of the entire speech area were divided by wars and religious conflicts. France, Switzerland, the Franche-Comté, and the duchy, later kingdom, the edict explicitly replaced Latin with French as the language of law and the courts

40.
Jurassien language
–
Franco-Provençal, Arpitan or Romand is a Gallo-Romance language spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland, northwestern Italy, and in enclaves in the Province of Foggia in Apulia, Italy. Franco-Provençal has several dialects and is separate from but closely related to neighboring Romance languages, Oïl languages, Occitan, Gallo-Italian. The name Franco-Provençal was given to the language by G. I, Ascoli in the 19th century because it shared features with French and Provençal without belonging to either. Arpitan, a neologism, is becoming a name for the language. This name was popularized due to the lands where the Arpitan language is spoken or used to be the prevalent idiom, the name for the region comes from the term Arpes, meaning Alps in Arpitan. Today, the largest number of Franco-Provençal speakers reside in the Aosta Valley, the language is also spoken in alpine valleys in the province of Turin, two isolated towns in Foggia, and rural areas of the Romandie region of Switzerland. It is one of the three Gallo-Romance language families of France and is recognized as a regional language of France. Organizations are attempting to preserve it through cultural events, education, scholarly research, aside from regional French dialects, it is the most closely related language to French. The number of speakers of Franco-Provençal has been declining significantly, according to UNESCO, Franco-Provençal is a potentially endangered language in Italy and an endangered language in Switzerland and France. Franco-Provençal emerged as a Gallo-Romance variety of Latin, the linguistic region comprises east-central France, western portions of Switzerland, and the Aosta Valley of Italy with the adjacent alpine valleys of the Piedmont. This area covers territories once occupied by pre-Roman Celts, including the Allobroges, Sequani, Helvetii, Ceutrones, by the 5th century, the region was controlled by the Burgundians. Franco-Provençal is first attested in manuscripts from the 12th century, possibly diverging from the langues doïl as early as the 8th–9th centuries, one writer has detected the influence of Basque by analyzing fossil words from toponymy and the dialect in the Aosta Valley Valdôtain patois. However, Franco-Provençal is consistently typified by a strict, myopic comparison to French, and so is characterized as conservative. Thus, commentators, like Désormaux, consider medieval the terms for many nouns and verbs, including pâta rag, bayâ to give, moussâ to lie down, all of which are conservative only relative to French. As an example, Désormaux, writing on this point in the foreword of his Savoyard dialect dictionary, states, one can note it not only in phonetics and morphology, but also in the vocabulary, where one finds numerous words and directions that clearly disappeared from French. Franco-Provençal failed to garner the prestige of its three more widely spoken neighbors, French, Occitan, and Italian. Communities where speakers lived were generally mountainous and isolated from one another, the internal boundaries of the entire speech area were divided by wars and religious conflicts. France, Switzerland, the Franche-Comté, and the duchy, later kingdom, the edict explicitly replaced Latin with French as the language of law and the courts

41.
Lyonnais language
–
Franco-Provençal, Arpitan or Romand is a Gallo-Romance language spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland, northwestern Italy, and in enclaves in the Province of Foggia in Apulia, Italy. Franco-Provençal has several dialects and is separate from but closely related to neighboring Romance languages, Oïl languages, Occitan, Gallo-Italian. The name Franco-Provençal was given to the language by G. I, Ascoli in the 19th century because it shared features with French and Provençal without belonging to either. Arpitan, a neologism, is becoming a name for the language. This name was popularized due to the lands where the Arpitan language is spoken or used to be the prevalent idiom, the name for the region comes from the term Arpes, meaning Alps in Arpitan. Today, the largest number of Franco-Provençal speakers reside in the Aosta Valley, the language is also spoken in alpine valleys in the province of Turin, two isolated towns in Foggia, and rural areas of the Romandie region of Switzerland. It is one of the three Gallo-Romance language families of France and is recognized as a regional language of France. Organizations are attempting to preserve it through cultural events, education, scholarly research, aside from regional French dialects, it is the most closely related language to French. The number of speakers of Franco-Provençal has been declining significantly, according to UNESCO, Franco-Provençal is a potentially endangered language in Italy and an endangered language in Switzerland and France. Franco-Provençal emerged as a Gallo-Romance variety of Latin, the linguistic region comprises east-central France, western portions of Switzerland, and the Aosta Valley of Italy with the adjacent alpine valleys of the Piedmont. This area covers territories once occupied by pre-Roman Celts, including the Allobroges, Sequani, Helvetii, Ceutrones, by the 5th century, the region was controlled by the Burgundians. Franco-Provençal is first attested in manuscripts from the 12th century, possibly diverging from the langues doïl as early as the 8th–9th centuries, one writer has detected the influence of Basque by analyzing fossil words from toponymy and the dialect in the Aosta Valley Valdôtain patois. However, Franco-Provençal is consistently typified by a strict, myopic comparison to French, and so is characterized as conservative. Thus, commentators, like Désormaux, consider medieval the terms for many nouns and verbs, including pâta rag, bayâ to give, moussâ to lie down, all of which are conservative only relative to French. As an example, Désormaux, writing on this point in the foreword of his Savoyard dialect dictionary, states, one can note it not only in phonetics and morphology, but also in the vocabulary, where one finds numerous words and directions that clearly disappeared from French. Franco-Provençal failed to garner the prestige of its three more widely spoken neighbors, French, Occitan, and Italian. Communities where speakers lived were generally mountainous and isolated from one another, the internal boundaries of the entire speech area were divided by wars and religious conflicts. France, Switzerland, the Franche-Comté, and the duchy, later kingdom, the edict explicitly replaced Latin with French as the language of law and the courts

42.
Vasconic languages
–
This article is about the contemporary language group. See Vasconic theory for the Vasconic languages postulated for remote antiquity, Vasconic languages is a putative family of languages that includes Basque and the extinct Aquitanian language. The extinct Iberian languages are frequently included. Along with other hypotheses that seek to relate Basque to other languages of the world, proponents of a Vasconic language family argue that Basque and the extinct Aquitanian language are close relatives, or that the modern varieties of Basque are distinct languages rather than dialects. However, these notions contradict conventional views on these languages, in two areas and this view is held by scholars such as Trask, Koldo Zuazo, and Koldo Mitxelena. Various attempts have been made to tie other languages, modern or extinct, such as Iberian, none of these theories have been able to provide convincing data and are rejected by mainstream Basque linguists. Iberian languages Paleohispanic languages Paleohispanic scripts Prehistoric Iberia Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula Proto-language Vasconic substratum theory

Vasconic languages
–
Biscayan

43.
Administrative divisions of France
–
The administrative divisions of France are concerned with the institutional and territorial organization of French territory. There are many divisions, which may have political, electoral. The French republic is divided into 18 regions,13 in metropolitan France and 5 in overseas France, the regions are subdivided into 96 departments. The departments are subdivided into 322 arrondissements, the arrondissements are subdivided into 1,995 cantons. The cantons are subdivided into 36,529 communes, three urban communes are further divided into municipal arrondissements. There are 20 arrondissements of Paris,16 arrondissements of Marseille, the city of Marseilles is also divided into 8 municipal sectors. Each sector is composed with two arrondissements. 4% of the population of metropolitan France living in them, each overseas region is coextensive with an overseas department, again with the same status as departments in metropolitan France. The first four departments were created in 1946 and preceded the four overseas regions. For elections it is divided into 6 electoral districts which differ slightly from the 5 administrative subdivisions, the 5 administrative subdivisions are divided into 48 communes. There also exist some associated communes as in metropolitan France, Saint-Barthélemy is a new overseas collectivity created on February 22,2007. It was previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe department, the commune structure was abolished and Saint-Barthélemy is now one of only three permanently inhabited territories of the French Republic with no commune structure. There are no cantons and arrondissements either, Saint-Martin is also a new overseas collectivity created on February 22,2007. It was also previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe department, the commune structure was abolished and Saint-Martin is now one of only three permanently inhabited territories of the French Republic with no commune structure. There are no cantons and arrondissements either, saint-Pierre and Miquelon is divided into 2 communes with no arrondissements or cantons. These 3 districts are, Uvea, Sigave, and Alo, Uvea is the most populous and is further divided into 3 wards, Hahake, Mua, and Hihifo. Wallis and Futuna is one of only three permanently inhabited territories of the French Republic with no communes and it also has no arrondissements or cantons. 1 overseas territory, the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, which have no permanent population, the French Southern and Antarctic Lands are divided into 5 districts,1. Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island 4, the Scattered Islands, a collection of six non permanently inhabited islands in the Indian Ocean, Banc du Geyser, Bassas da India, Europa, Juan de Nova, Glorioso, and Tromelin

Administrative divisions of France
–
Regions and departments of France.

44.
Amerindian
–
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian peoples of the Americas and their descendants. The term Amerindian is used in Quebec, the Guianas, Indigenous peoples of the United States are commonly known as Native Americans or American Indians, and Alaska Natives. Application of the term Indian originated with Christopher Columbus, who, in his search for Asia, eventually, the Americas came to be known as the West Indies, a name still used to refer to the islands of the Caribbean Sea. This led to the blanket term Indies and Indians for the indigenous inhabitants, although some indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers—and many, especially in the Amazon basin, still are—many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time, although some societies depended heavily on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, chiefdoms, states, and empires. Many parts of the Americas are still populated by peoples, some countries have sizable populations, especially Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Greenland, Guatemala, Mexico. At least a different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as the Quechuan languages, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan languages, many also maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization, and subsistence practices. Like most cultures, over time, cultures specific to many indigenous peoples have evolved to incorporate traditional aspects, some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western culture and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples. The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are the subject of ongoing research. According to archaeological and genetic evidence, North and South America were the last continents in the world with human habitation. During the Wisconsin glaciation, 50–17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed people to move across the bridge of Beringia that joined Siberia to northwest North America. Alaska was a glacial refugium because it had low snowfall, allowing a small population to exist, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of North America, blocking nomadic inhabitants and confining them to Alaska for thousands of years. Indigenous genetic studies suggest that the first inhabitants of the Americas share a single population, one that developed in isolation. The isolation of these peoples in Beringia might have lasted 10–20,000 years, around 16,500 years ago, the glaciers began melting, allowing people to move south and east into Canada and beyond. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets. Another route proposed involves migration - either on foot or using primitive boats - along the Pacific Northwest coast to the south, archeological evidence of the latter would have been covered by the sea level rise of more than 120 meters since the last ice age

45.
French West Indies
–
Pierre Belain dEsnambuc was a French trader and adventurer in the Caribbean, who established the first permanent French colony, Saint-Pierre, on the island of Martinique in 1635. Belain sailed to the Caribbean in 1625, hoping to establish a French settlement on the island of St. Christopher, in 1626 he returned to France, where he won the support of Cardinal Richelieu to establish French colonies in the region. Richelieu became a shareholder in the Compagnie de Saint-Christophe, created to accomplish this with dEsnambuc at its head, the company was not particularly successful and Richelieu had it reorganized as the Compagnie des Îles de lAmérique. In 1635 dEsnambuc sailed to Martinique with one hundred French settlers to land for sugarcane plantations. After six months on Martinique, dEsnambuc returned to St. Christopher and his nephew, Jacques Dyel du Parquet, inherited dEsnambucs authority over the French settlements in the Caribbean, in 1637 becoming governor of Martinique. He remained in Martinique and did not concern himself with the other islands, the French permanently settled on Martinique and Guadeloupe after being driven off Saint Kitts and Nevis by the British. Fort Royal on Martinique was a port for French battle ships in the region from which the French were able to explore the region. In 1638, Jacques Dyel du Parquet, nephew of Pierre Belain dEsnambuc and first governor of Martinique, the King would name the Governor General of the company, and the company the Governors of the various islands. However, by the late 1640s, in France Mazarin had little interest in colonial affairs, in 1651 it dissolved itself, selling its exploitation rights to various parties. The du Paquet family bought Martinique, Grenada, and Saint Lucia for 60,000 livres, the sieur dHouël bought Guadeloupe, Marie-Galante, La Desirade and the Saintes. The Knights of Malta bought Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin, which were made dependencies of Guadeloupe, in 1665, the Knights sold the islands they had acquired to the newly formed Compagnie des Indes occidentales. Dominica is a former French and British colony in the Eastern Caribbean, Christopher Columbus named the island after the day of the week on which he spotted it, a Sunday,3 November 1493. In the hundred years after Columbuss landing, Dominica remained isolated, at the time it was inhabited by the Island Caribs, or Kalinago people, and over time more settled there after being driven from surrounding islands, as European powers entered the region. In 1690, French woodcutters from Martinique and Guadeloupe begin to set up camps to supply the French islands with wood. France had a colony for years, they imported slaves from West Africa, Martinique. In this period, the Antillean Creole language developed, France formally ceded possession of Dominica to Great Britain in 1763. Great Britain established a colony on the island in 1805. In Trinidad, the occupying Spanish had contributed little towards advancements, because it was considered underpopulated, Roume de St

French West Indies
–
Les Salines in Martinique.
French West Indies
–
Location of the modern territories of the French West Indies

46.
Saint Martin
–
Saint Martin is an island in the northeast Caribbean, approximately 300 km east of Puerto Rico. It is the smallest inhabited island divided between two nations, the southern Dutch part comprises Sint Maarten and is one of four constituent countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The northern French part comprises the Collectivité de Saint-Martin and is an overseas collectivity of France. On 1 January 2009, the population of the island was 77,741 inhabitants, with 40,917 living on the Dutch side. Collectively, the two territories are known as St-Martin / St Maarten, sometimes SXM, the IATA identifier for Princess Juliana International Airport, is used to refer to the island. St. Martin received the ISO 3166-1 code MF in October 2007, the Dutch part changed in status to a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 2010 and was given the code SX. Saint Martin has an area of 87 km2,53 km2 of which is under the sovereignty of France. This is the land border shared by France and the Kingdom of the Netherlands anywhere on Earth. The main cities are Philipsburg and Marigot, the Dutch side is more heavily populated. The largest settlement on the island is Lower Princes Quarter. The highest hilltop is the Pic Paradis in the center of a chain on the French side. Both sides are hilly with large mountain peaks and this forms a valley where many houses are located. There are no rivers on the island, but many dry guts, hiking trails give access to the dry forest covering tops and slopes. The island is located south of Anguilla, separated from the British territory by the Anguilla Channel, Saint Martin is northwest of Saint Barthélemy, separated from the French territory by the Saint-Barthélemy Channel. It is one of the Renaissance Islands, under the Köppen climate classification, the island has a tropical monsoon climate with a dry season from January to April and a rainy season from August to December. The precipitation patterns are due to the movement of the Azores high during the year, with the wind direction predominantly from the east or the northeast, temperatures remain stable throughout the year and temperatures rarely exceed 34 °C or fall below 20 °C. Temperatures remain steady throughout the year with a mean temperature of 27.2 °C. The average sea temperature is 27.2 °C ranging from a low of 25.9 °C in February to a high of 28.4 °C in October, the total average yearly rainfall is 1,047 mm, with 142 days of measurable rainfall

47.
New Caledonia
–
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean,1,210 km east of Australia and 16,136 km east of Metropolitan France. The Chesterfield Islands are in the Coral Sea, locals refer to Grande Terre as Le Caillou. New Caledonia has an area of 18,576 km2. Its population of 268,767 consists of a mix of Kanak people, people of European descent, Polynesian people, the capital of the territory is Nouméa. The earliest traces of human presence in New Caledonia date back to the Lapita period, the Lapita were highly skilled navigators and agriculturists with influence over a large area of the Pacific. British explorer Captain James Cook was the first European to sight New Caledonia, on 4 September 1774 and he named it New Caledonia, as the northeast of the island reminded him of Scotland. The west coast of Grande Terre was approached by Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse in 1788, shortly before his disappearance, from then until 1840, only a few sporadic contacts with the archipelago were recorded. Contacts became more frequent after 1840, because of the interest in sandalwood from New Caledonia, the trade ceased at the start of the 20th century. The victims of this trade were called Kanakas, like all the Oceanian people, the first missionaries from the London Missionary Society and the Marist Brothers arrived in the 1840s. In 1849, the crew of the American ship Cutter was killed, cannibalism was widespread throughout New Caledonia. On 24 September 1853, under orders from Napoleon III, Admiral Febvrier Despointes took formal possession of New Caledonia, a few dozen free settlers settled on the west coast in the following years. New Caledonia became a colony, and from the 1860s until the end of the transportations in 1897, about 22,000 criminals. Among the convicts were many Communards arrested after the failed Paris Commune, including Henri de Rochefort, between 1873 and 1876,4,200 political prisoners were relegated in New Caledonia. Only 40 of them settled in the colony, the rest returned to France after being granted amnesty in 1879 and 1880. In 1864, nickel was discovered on the banks of the Diahot River and with the establishment of the Société Le Nickel in 1876, mining began in earnest. The French imported labourers to work in the mines, first from neighbouring islands, then from Japan, the Dutch East Indies, the French government also attempted to encourage European immigration, without much success. The indigenous population was excluded from the French economy, even as workers in the mines, and they were ultimately confined to reservations. This sparked a violent reaction in 1878 as High Chief Atal of La Foa managed to unite many of the central tribes, the Europeans brought new diseases such as smallpox and measles

New Caledonia
–
Flags of New Caledonia
New Caledonia
–
Chief "King Jacques" and his Queen
New Caledonia
–
Jean Lèques during a ceremony honoring U.S. service members who helped ensure the freedom of New Caledonia during World War II

48.
Eastern Polynesian languages
–
They are classified as part of the Austronesian family, belonging to the Oceanic branch of that family. There are approximately forty Polynesian languages, the most prominent of these are Tahitian, Sāmoan, Tongan, Māori and Hawaiian. Because the Polynesian islands were settled relatively recently and because internal linguistic diversification only began around 2,000 years ago, their languages retain strong commonalities. There are still many cognate words across the different islands e. g. tapu, ariki, motu, kava, and tapa as well as Hawaiki, all Polynesian languages show strong similarity, particularly in vocabulary. The vowels are stable in the descendant languages, nearly always a, e, i, o and u. In the Society Islands, k and ng are replaced by the glottal stop, Polynesian languages fall into two branches, Tongic and Nuclear Polynesian. Tongan and Niuean constitute the Tongic branch, all of the rest are part of the Nuclear Polynesian branch, lexicostatistics is a controversial tool that can identify points in languages from which linguistic relations can be inferred. Pawley published another study in 1967, wilson named this new group Ellicean after the pre-independence name of Tuvalu and presented fine-grained evidence for subgroups within that overarching category. Marck, in 2000, was able to some support for some aspects of Wilsons suggestion through comparisons of shared sporadic sound changes. Proto-Polynesian and Proto-Nuclear-Polynesian *mafu to heal becoming Proto-Ellicean *mafo and this was made possible by the massive Polynesian language comparative lexicon of Biggs and Clark. Wilson has a forthcoming work providing further evidence of fine grained subgroups within Ellicean, Wilsons new work brings the matter to the approximate limits of current data available, incorporating much data unknown to most other researchers. Returning to lexicostatistics, it must be emphasised that the method does not make the best possible use of its short word lists of 100 or 200 words. Dyens massive lexicostatistical study of Austronesian, for instance, showed a great deal of diversity in the Austronesian languages of Western Melanesia and this was sometimes on par with the lexicostatistical distance of Taiwan Austronesian languages from other Austronesian including Taiwan Austronesian languages from each other. The Western Oceanic Melanesian diversity of lexicostatistical studies was never of any interest in terms of attributing any special time depth or subgrouping significance to it, partly because Polynesian languages split from one another comparatively recently, many words in these languages remain similar to corresponding words in others. Certain regular correspondences can be noted between different Polynesian languages, for example, the Māori sounds /k/, /ɾ/, /t/, and /ŋ/ correspond to /ʔ/, /l/, /k/, and /n/ in Hawaiian. Accordingly, man is tangata in Māori and kanaka in Hawaiian, the famous Hawaiian greeting aloha corresponds to Māori aroha, love, tender emotion. Similarly, the Hawaiian word for kava is ʻawa, similarities in basic vocabulary may allow speakers from different island groups to achieve a surprising degree of understanding of each others speech. When a particular language shows unexpectedly large divergence in vocabulary, this may be the result of a name-avoidance taboo situation – see examples in Tahitian, many Polynesian languages have been greatly affected by European colonization

49.
Mayotte
–
Mayotte is an insular department and region of France officially named Département de Mayotte. It consists of an island, Grande-Terre, a smaller island, Petite-Terre. The archipelago is located in the northern Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Southeast Africa, the department status of Mayotte is recent and the region remains the poorest in France. Mayotte is nevertheless much more prosperous than the countries of the Mozambique Channel. Mayottes area is 374 square kilometres and, with its 212,645 people, is densely populated at 569 per km². The biggest city and prefecture is Mamoudzou on Grande-Terre, however, the Dzaoudzi–Pamandzi International Airport is located on the neighbouring island of Petite-Terre. The territory is part of the Comoro Islands. The territory is known as Maore, the native name of its main island. The language of the majority is Shimaore, a Bantu language variety closely related to the varieties in the neighbouring Comoros islands, the second most widely spoken native language is Kibushi, a Malagasy language variety most closely related to the Sakalava dialect of Malagasy with influences from Shimaore. The vast majority of the population is Muslim, the island was populated from neighbouring East Africa with later arrival of Arabs, who brought the Islamic religion. A sultanate was established in 1500, the people of Mayotte voted to remain politically a part of France in the 1974 referendum. The term Mayotte may refer to all of the islands, of which the largest is known as Maore and includes Maores surrounding islands, most notably Pamanzi. The main island, Grande-Terre, geologically the oldest of the Comoro Islands, is 39 kilometres long and 22 kilometres wide, because of the volcanic rock, the soil is relatively rich in some areas. A coral reef encircling much of the island ensures protection for ships, Dzaoudzi was the capital of Mayotte until 1977. It is situated on Petite-Terre, which at 10 square kilometres is the largest of several islets adjacent to Maore, in 1500, the Maore or Mawuti sultanate was established on the island. In 1503, Mayotte was observed by Portuguese explorers, but not colonized, in 1832, Mayotte was conquered by Andriantsoly, former king of Iboina on Madagascar, in 1833, it was conquered by the neighbouring sultanate of Mwali. On 19 November 1835, Mayotte was again conquered by the Ndzuwani Sultanate, however, in 1836 it regained its independence under a last local Sultan. Mayotte was purchased by France in 1841 and it was the only island in the archipelago that voted in referendums in 1974 and 1976 to retain its link with France and forgo independence

50.
Maghrebi Arabic
–
Maghrebi Arabic, or Maghrebi Darija, is the principal spoken language in the Maghreb region, including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. Its also called Western Arabic that includes Moroccan Arabic, Algerian Arabic, in Algeria, the Maghrebi as a colloquial language was taught as a separate subject under French colonization, and some textbooks exist. Speakers of Maghrebi call their language Derja, Derija or Darija and it is used as a spoken and sometimes as a written language for communication. Maghrebi Arabic is used as well in TV dramas and on advertising boards in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, the varieties of Maghrebi Arabic Darija have a significant degree of mutual intelligibility, specially between geographically adjacent ones but hardly between the Moroccan and Tunisian Darija. Conversely, the Moroccan Darija cannot be understood by Eastern Arabic speakers in general as it does derive from different substratums, a considerable number of linguists like Charles A. Ferguson, William Marçais and Abdou Elimam, tend to consider Maghrebi Arabic Darija as an independent language. Maghrebi dialects all use n- as the singular prefix on verbs, distinguishing them from Levantine dialects. Speakers frequently borrow words from French, Spanish and Italian and conjugate them according to the rules of Arabic with some exceptions, since it is not always written, there is no standard and it is free to change quickly and to pick up new vocabulary from neighbouring languages. This is somewhat similar to what happened to Middle English after the Norman conquest, linguistically, Siculo-Arabic and therefore its descendant Maltese are considered Maghrebi, but they are no longer mutually intelligible with the varieties spoken today in North Africa. When discussing modern languages, the word is given a geographic definition. It refers to any of the varieties of colloquial Maghrebi Arabic, for instance, Algerian Arabic would be referred as Dzayri and Tunisian Arabic as Tounsi, and Egyptian Arabic would be referred as Masri and Lebanese Arabic as Lubnani. Singer, Hans-Rudolf “Das Westarabische oder Maghribinische” in Wolfdietrich Fischer and Otto Jastrow Handbuch der arabischen Dialekte

Maghrebi Arabic
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An overview of the different Arabic dialects. Maghrebi varieties are shades of blue.

51.
Corsica
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Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 13 regions of France. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, southeast of the French mainland, a single chain of mountains make up two-thirds of the island. While being part of France, Corsica is also designated as a territorial collectivity by law, as a territorial collectivity, Corsica enjoys a greater degree of autonomy than other French regions, for example, the Corsican Assembly is able to exercise limited executive powers. The island formed a single department until it was split in 1975 into two departments, Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud, with its capital in Ajaccio, the prefecture city of Corse-du-Sud. Bastia, the city of Haute-Corse, is the second-largest settlement in Corsica. After being ruled by the Republic of Genoa since 1284, Corsica was briefly an independent Corsican Republic from 1755 until it was conquered by France in 1769. Due to Corsicas historical ties with the Italian peninsula, the island retains to this day many elements of the culture of Italy, the native Corsican language, whose northern variant is closely related to the Italian language, is recognised as a regional language by the French government. This Mediterranean island was ruled by various nations over the course of history but had several periods of independence. Napoleon was born in 1769 in the Corsican capital of Ajaccio and his ancestral home, Maison Bonaparte, is today used as a museum. The origin of the name Corsica is subject to much debate, to the Ancient Greeks it was known as Kalliste, Corsis, Cyrnos, Cernealis, or Cirné. Of these Cyrnos, Cernealis, or Cirné derive from a corruption of the most ancient Greek name of the island, Σειρηνούσσαι, the claim that latter Greek names are based on the Phoenician word for peninsula are highly unlikely. Corsica has been occupied continuously since the Mesolithic era and it acquired an indigenous population that was influential in the Mediterranean during its long prehistory. The Romans, who built a colony in Aléria, considered Corsica as one of the most backward regions of the Roman world, the island produced sheep, honey, resin and wax, and exported many slaves, not well considered because of their fierce and rebellious character. Moreover, it was known for its wines, exported to Rome. Administratively, the island was divided in pagi, which in the Middle Ages became the pievi, Corsica was integrated by Emperor Diocletian in Roman Italy. In the 5th century, the half of the Roman Empire collapsed, and the island was invaded by the Vandals. Briefly recovered by the Byzantines, it became part of the Kingdom of the Lombards—this made it a dependency of the March of Tuscany. Pepin the Short, king of the Franks and Charlemagnes father, expelled the Lombards, in the first quarter of the 11th century, Pisa and Genoa together freed the island from the threat of Arab invasion

52.
Aquitaine
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Aquitaine, archaic Guyenne/Guienne was a traditional region of France, and was an administrative region of France until 1 January 2016. It is now part of the new region Nouvelle-Aquitaine and it is situated in the south-western part of Metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It is composed of the five departments of Dordogne, Lot-et-Garonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes, in the Middle Ages, Aquitaine was a kingdom and a duchy, whose boundaries fluctuated considerably. This has been demonstrated by various Aquitanian names and words that were recorded by the Romans, whether this Aquitanian language was a remnant of a Vasconic language group that once extended much farther, or whether it was generally limited to the Aquitaine/Basque region is not known. The original Aquitania at the time of Caesars conquest of Gaul included the area bounded by the Garonne River, the Pyrenees, the name may stem from Latin aqua, maybe derived from the town Aquae Augustae, Aquae Tarbellicae or just Aquis or as a more general geographical feature. In 392, the Roman imperial provinces were restructured and Aquitania Prima, Aquitania Secunda, accounts of Aquitania during the Early Middle Ages are a blur, lacking precision, but there was much unrest. The Visigoths were called into Gaul as foederati, legalizing their status within the Empire, eventually they established themselves as the de facto rulers in south-west Gaul as central Roman rule collapsed. Visigoths established their capital in Toulouse, but their tenure on Aquitaine was feeble, in 507, they were expelled south to Hispania after their defeat in the Battle of Vouillé by the Franks, who became the new rulers in the area to the south of the Loire. The Roman Aquitania Tertia remained in place as Novempopulania, where a duke was appointed to hold a grip over the Basques and these dukes were quite detached from central Frankish overlordship, sometimes governing as independent rulers with strong ties to their kinsmen south of the Pyrenees. As of 660, the foundations for an independent Aquitaine/Vasconia polity were established by the duke Felix of Aquitaine, a united Basque-Aquitanian realm reached its heyday under Odo the Greats rule. Odo was required to pledge allegiance to the Frankish Charles Martel in exchange for help against the advancing Arabic forces, Basque-Aquitanian self-rule temporarily came to a halt, definitely in 768 after the assassination of Waifer. Seguin, count of Bordeaux and Duke of Vasconia, seemed to have attempted a detachment from the Frankish central authority on Charlemagnes death, the new emperor Louis the Pious reacted by removing him from his capacity, which stirred the Basques into rebellion. Before Pepins death, emperor Louis had appointed a new king in 832, his son Charles the Bald, however scarce, some Frankish population and nobles settled down in regions like Albigeois, Carcassone, Toulouse, and Provence and Lower Rhone. After the death of the king Dagobert I, the Merovingian tenure south of the Loire became largely nominal, with the power being in the hands of autonomous regional leaders. The Franks may have largely assimilated to the preponderant Gallo-Roman culture by the 8th century. Still, in the Battle of Toulouse, the Aquitanian duke Odo is said to be leading an army of Aquitanians, on the other hand, the Franks didnt mix with the Basques, keeping separate paths. Recorded evidence points to their deployment across Aquitaine in a capacity as a mainstay of the Dukes forces. Romans are cited as living in the cities of Aquitaine, as opposed to the Franks, in 1058, the Duchy of Vasconia and Aquitaine merged under the rule of William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine

53.
Nord-Pas-de-Calais
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Nord-Pas-de-Calais (French pronunciation, is a former administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it is part of the new region Hauts-de-France and it consisted of the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais. Nord-Pas-de-Calais borders the English Channel, the North Sea, Belgium, the majority of the region was once part of the historical Netherlands, but gradually became part of France between 1477 and 1678, particularly during the reign of king Louis XIV. The historical French provinces that preceded Nord-Pas-de-Calais are Artois, French Flanders, French Hainaut and these provincial designations are still frequently used by the inhabitants. Its administrative centre and largest city is Lille, other major towns include Valenciennes, Lens, Douai, Béthune, Dunkirk, Maubeuge, Boulogne, Arras, Cambrai and Saint-Omer. Nord-Pas-de-Calais combines the names of the constituent departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais, the regional council, however, spells the name Nord-Pas de Calais. The northern part of the region was historically a part of the County of Flanders and those who wish to evidence the historical links the region has with Belgium and the Netherlands prefer to call this region the French Low Countries, which also means French Netherlands in French. Other alternative names are Région Flandre-Artois, Hauts-de-France, and Picardie-du-Nord, see also, History of Nord-Pas-de-Calais Inhabited since prehistoric times, the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region has always been a strategic regions in Europe. French President Charles de Gaulle, who was born in Lille, over the centuries, it was conquered in turn by the Celtic Belgae, the Romans, the Germanic Franks, England, the Spanish and Austrian Netherlands, and the Dutch Republic. After the final French annexation in the early 18th century, much of the region was occupied by Germany during the First. By the 9th century, most inhabitants north of Lille spoke a dialect of Middle Dutch and this linguistic border is still evident today in the place names of the region. Beginning in the 9th century, the border began a steady move to north. By the end of the 13th century, the border had shifted to the river Lys in the south. Boulogne, Artois, and Flanders were fiefs of the French crown, while Hainaut, Calais was an English possession from 1347 to 1558, when it was recovered by the French throne. With the death of the Burgundian duke Charles the Bold in 1477, thus, most of the territories of what is now Nord-Pas-de-Calais were reunited to the Burgundian inheritance, which had passed through Maries marriage to the House of Habsburg. During the Italian Wars much of the conflict between France and Spain occurred in the region and it was also a base for Spanish support of French Catholics in the French Wars of Religion. Beginning with the annexation of Artois in 1659, most of the current Nord department territory had been acquired by the time of the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678, the current borders were mostly established by the time of the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697. The area, previously divided among the French provinces of Flanders, Artois, under Napoleon, the French boundary was extended to include all of Flanders and present-day Belgium until the Congress of Vienna in 1815 restored the original French boundary

54.
Alsace
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Alsace is a cultural and historical region in eastern France now located in the administrative region of Grand Est. Alsace is located on Frances eastern border and on the west bank of the upper Rhine adjacent to Germany, from 1982 until January 2016, Alsace was the smallest of 22 administrative regions in metropolitan France, consisting of the Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin departments. Territorial reform passed by the French legislature in 2014 resulted in the merger of the Alsace administrative region with Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine to form Grand Est. The predominant historical language of Alsace is Alsatian, a Germanic dialect also spoken across the Rhine, but today most Alsatians primarily speak French, the political status of Alsace has been heavily influenced by historical decisions, wars, and strategic politics. The economic and cultural capital as well as largest city of Alsace is Strasbourg, the city is the seat of several international organizations and bodies. The name Alsace can be traced to the Old High German Ali-saz or Elisaz, an alternative explanation is from a Germanic Ell-sass, meaning seated on the Ill, a river in Alsace. In prehistoric times, Alsace was inhabited by nomadic hunters, by 1500 BC, Celts began to settle in Alsace, clearing and cultivating the land. It should be noted that Alsace is a surrounded by the Vosges mountains. It creates Foehn winds which, along with irrigation, contributes to the fertility of the soil. In a world of agriculture, Alsace has always been a region which explains why it suffered so many invasions and annexations in its history. By 58 BC, the Romans had invaded and established Alsace as a center of viticulture, to protect this highly valued industry, the Romans built fortifications and military camps that evolved into various communities which have been inhabited continuously to the present day. While part of the Roman Empire, Alsace was part of Germania Superior, with the decline of the Roman Empire, Alsace became the territory of the Germanic Alemanni. The Alemanni were agricultural people, and their Germanic language formed the basis of modern-day dialects spoken along the Upper Rhine, Clovis and the Franks defeated the Alemanni during the 5th century AD, culminating with the Battle of Tolbiac, and Alsace became part of the Kingdom of Austrasia. Under Clovis Merovingian successors the inhabitants were Christianized, Alsace formed part of the Middle Francia, which was ruled by the eldest grandson Lothar I. Lothar died early in 855 and his realm was divided into three parts, the part known as Lotharingia, or Lorraine, was given to Lothars son. The rest was shared between Lothars brothers Charles the Bald and Louis the German, the Kingdom of Lotharingia was short-lived, however, becoming the stem duchy of Lorraine in Eastern Francia after the Treaty of Ribemont in 880. Alsace was united with the other Alemanni east of the Rhine into the duchy of Swabia. Alsace experienced great prosperity during the 12th and 13th centuries under Hohenstaufen emperors, Frederick I set up Alsace as a province to be ruled by ministeriales, a non-noble class of civil servants

Alsace
Alsace
Alsace
Alsace

55.
Languages of the European Union
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The languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union. The EU has 24 official languages, of three have the higher status of procedural languages of the European Commission. The three procedural languages are used in the day-to-day workings of the institutions of the EU. The EU asserts that it is in favour of linguistic diversity and this principle is enshrined in the EU Charter and in the Treaty on European Union. The EU encourages all its citizens to be multilingual, specifically, the most widely spoken language in the EU is English, which is understood by 51% of all adults, while German is the most widely used mother tongue, spoken by 18%. All 24 official languages of the EU are accepted as working languages, French is an official language in all three of the cities that are political centres of the Union, Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg City. Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, and Swedish are all official languages at the level in multiple countries. In addition, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Slovak, furthermore, not all national languages have been accorded the status of official EU languages. These include Luxembourgish, a language of Luxembourg since 1984, and Turkish. All languages of the EU are also working languages, the reply is drafted in the same language. Regulations and other documents of general application are drafted in the official languages. The Official Journal of the European Union is published in the official languages. Legislation and documents of major importance or interest are produced in all official languages. Communications with the authorities, decisions addressed to particular individuals or entities. For internal purposes the EU institutions are allowed by law to choose their own language arrangements, the European Parliament, on the other hand, has members who need working documents in their own languages, so its document flow is fully multilingual from the outset. Non-institutional EU bodies are not legally obliged to make language arrangement for all the 24 languages, according to the EUs English-language website, the cost of maintaining the institutions’ policy of multilingualism—i. e. The cost of translation and interpretation—was €1,123 million in 2005, the EU Parliament has made clear that its member states have autonomy for language education, which by treaty the European Community must respect. The majority of EU languages belong to the Indo-European family, the three dominant subfamilies being the Germanic, Romance, and Slavic, Germanic languages are spoken in central and northern Europe and include Danish, Dutch, English, German, and Swedish

56.
Gaulish language
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Gaulish is an ancient Celtic language that was spoken in parts of Europe as late as the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language spoken by the Celtic inhabitants of Gaul. In a wider sense, it also comprises varieties of Celtic that were spoken across much of central Europe, parts of the Balkans, and Asia Minor, the more divergent Lepontic of Northern Italy has also sometimes been subsumed under Gaulish. Together with Lepontic and the Celtiberian language spoken in the Iberian Peninsula, the precise linguistic relationships among them, as well as between them and the modern Insular Celtic languages, are uncertain and a matter of ongoing debate because of their sparse attestation. Gaulish texts were first written in the Greek alphabet in southern France, after the Roman conquest of those regions, writing shifted to the use of the Latin alphabet. Gaulish was supplanted by Vulgar Latin and various Germanic languages from around the 5th century AD onwards and it is estimated that during the Bronze Age, Proto-Celtic started fragmenting into distinct languages, including Celtiberian and Gaulish. Their precise linguistic relationships are uncertain because of the nature of the evidence. Among those regions where substantial inscriptional evidence exists, three varieties are usually distinguished.600 BC and it has been described either as an early dialect of an outlying form of Gaulish, or else as a separate Continental Celtic language. Attestations of Gaulish proper in present-day France are known as Transalpine Gaulish and its written record begins in the 3rd century BC with inscriptions in the Greek alphabet, found mainly in the Rhône area of southern France. After the Roman conquest of Gaul, the writing of Gaulish shifted to the Latin alphabet, as they were written after the time of the Gaulish conquest of Cisalpine Gaul, they are usually identified as Cisalpine Gaulish. The relationship between Gaulish and the other Celtic languages is subject to debate. Most scholars today agree that Celtiberian was the first to branch off from the remaining Celtic languages, other scholars place more emphasis on shared innovations between Brittonic and Goidelic, and group these together as an Insular Celtic branch. Sims-Williams discusses a composite model, in which the Continental and Insular varieties are seen as part of a continuum, with genealogical splits. At least 13 references to Gaulish speech and Gaulish writing can be found in Greek, the word Gaulish as a language term is first explicitly used in the Appendix Vergiliana in a poem referring to Gaulish letters of the alphabet. Caesar relates that census accounts written in the Greek alphabet were found among the Helvetii, according to the Recueil des Inscriptions Gauloises, nearly three quarters of Gaulish inscriptions are in the Greek alphabet. Later inscriptions dating to Roman Gaul are mostly in the Latin alphabet and have been principally in central France. Latin was quickly adopted by the Gaulish aristocracy after the Roman conquest to maintain their power and influence. Early references to Gaulish in Gaul tend to be made in the context of problems with Greek or Latin fluency until around 400,450, Gaulish begins to be mentioned in contexts where Latin has replaced Gaulish or Celtic

Gaulish language
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The Curse tablet from L'Hospitalet-du-Larzac, Musée de Millau.
Gaulish language
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The name ARAÐÐOVNA on a Gaulish tomb, illustrating the use of the tau gallicum (in this case doubled).

57.
Old Frankish
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Frankish, Old Franconian, or Old Frankish was the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks between the 4th and 8th century. The language itself is attested, but it gave rise to numerous loanwords in Old French. Old Dutch is the term for the Old Franconian dialects spoken in the Low Countries until about the 12th century when it evolved into Middle Dutch, during the Merovingian period, Frankish had significant influence on the Romance languages spoken in Gaul. As a result, many modern French words and placenames have a Germanic origin, France itself is still known in German as Frankreich and in Dutch as Frankrijk, i. e. the Frankish Realm. The Frankish language as spoken before the Carolingian period is mostly reconstructed from Old French loanwords, a notable exception is the Bergakker inscription, which may represent a primary record of 5th-century Frankish. In a modern context, the language is variously called Old Frankish or Old Franconian. In philology, the language spoken by the Salian Franks from around the 5th to the 10th century was called Old Dutch or, sometimes, Old Low Franconian, compare the somewhat analogous usage, in philological versus linguistic contexts, of Old English vs. Anglo-Saxon. The English term Old Frankish is, for reasons, usually not used in the context of the Ripuarian Franks. It is more used in the Salian Frank and Dutch contexts. The language spoken by the Salian Franks has sometimes referred to as Old West Low Franconian. The Germanic languages are divided into three groups, West, East and North Germanic. Their exact relation is difficult to determine, and they remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period, the language spoken by the Franks was part of the West Germanic language group, which had features from Proto-Germanic in the late Jastorf culture. The West Germanic group is characterized by a number of phonological and morphological innovations not found in North, the West Germanic varieties of the time are generally split into three dialect groups, Ingvaeonic, Istvaeonic and Irminonic. While each had its own characteristics, there certainly must have still been a high degree of mutual intelligibility between these dialects. It is speculated that these tribes spoke a range of related Istvaeonic dialects in the West Germanic branch of Proto-Germanic. Sometime in the 4th or 5th centuries, it becomes appropriate to speak of Old Franconian rather than an Istvaeonic dialect of Proto-Germanic, very little is known about what the language was like during this period. One older runic sentence is on the sheath of Bergakker which is either the singular direct attestation of the Old Franconian language or the earliest attestation of Old Low Franconian language. Another early sentence from the early 6th century AD is found in the Lex Salica and this phrase was used to free a serf, Maltho thi afrio lito These are the earliest sentences yet found of Old Franconian

58.
Old French
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Old French was the Gallo-Romance dialect continuum spoken from the 9th century to the 14th century. In the 14th century, these came to be collectively known as the langues doïl. The mid-14th century is taken as the period to Middle French. The areal of Old French in contemporary terms corresponded to the parts of the Kingdom of France, Upper Burgundy. As part of the emerging Gallo-Romance dialect continuum, the langues doïl were contrasted with the langue doc, in these examples, we notice a clear consequence of bilingualism, that sometimes even changed the first syllable of the Latin words. Pope estimated that perhaps still 15% of the vocabulary of modern French derives from Germanic sources, at the third Council of Tours in 813, priests were ordered to preach in the vernacular language, since the common people could no longer understand formal Latin. The second-oldest document in Old French is the Eulalia sequence, which is important for reconstruction of Old French pronunciation due to its consistent spelling. The Capetians langue doïl, the forerunner of modern standard French, did not begin to become the common speech of all of France, however, until after the French Revolution. In the Late Middle Ages, the Old French dialects diverged into a number of distinct langues doïl, during the Early Modern period, French now becomes established as the official language of the Kingdom of France throughout the realm, also including the langue doc-speaking territories in the south. Old French gives way to Middle French in the mid-14th century, the earliest extant French literary texts date from the ninth century, but very few texts before the 11th century have survived. The first literary works written in Old French were saints lives, the Canticle of Saint Eulalie, written in the second half of the 9th century, is generally accepted as the first such text. The first of these is the area of the chansons de geste. More than one hundred chansons de geste have survived in three hundred manuscripts. The oldest and most celebrated of the chansons de geste is The Song of Roland, a fourth grouping, not listed by Bertrand, is the Crusade cycle, dealing with the First Crusade and its immediate aftermath. Jean Bodels other two categories—the Matter of Rome and the Matter of Britain—concern the French romance or roman, around a hundred verse romances survive from the period 1150–1220. From around 1200 on, the tendency was increasingly to write the romances in prose, the most important romance of the 13th century is the Romance of the Rose which breaks considerably from the conventions of the chivalric adventure story. The Occitan or Provençal poets were called troubadours, from the word trobar to find, lyric poets in Old French are called trouvères. By the late 13th century, the tradition in France had begun to develop in ways that differed significantly from the troubadour poets

59.
History of French
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French is a Romance language that evolved out of the Gallo-Romance spoken in northern France. Before the Roman conquest of what is now France by Julius Caesar, much of present France was inhabited by Celtic-speaking peoples referred to by the Romans as Gauls and Belgae. The Celtic population of Gaul had spoken Gaulish, which is well attested, with what appears to be wide dialectal variation including one distinctive variety. While the French language evolved from Vulgar Latin, it was influenced by Gaulish. Chief among these are sandhi phenomena, the loss of unstressed syllables, the sound changes /ps/ → /χs/ and /pt/ → /χt/ appears in a pottery inscription from la Graufesenque where the word paraxsidi is written for paropsides. These two changes sometimes had an effect in French, Latin capsa → *kaχsa → caisse or captīvus → *kaχtivus → Occ caitiu. In French and adjoining folk dialects and closely related languages, some 200 words of Gaulish origin have been retained, and loan translations, aveugle blind, from Latin ab oculis eyeless, calque of Gaulish exsops blind, literally eyeless. The eventual spread of Latin can be attributed to social factors in the Late Empire such as the movement from urban-focused power to village-centered economies and legal serfdom. From the 3rd century on, Western Europe was invaded by Germanic tribes from the north and east, the Frankish language had a profound influence on the Latin spoken in their respective regions, altering both the pronunciation and the syntax. They also introduced a number of new words, changes in lexicon/morphology/syntax, the name of the language itself, français, comes from Old French franceis/francesc from the Germanic frankisc french, frankish from Frank. The Franks referred to their land as Franko which became Francia in Latin in the 3rd century, the name Gaule was also taken from the Frankish *Walholant. Several terms and expressions associated with their social structure, colors derived from Frankish and other Germanic languages. Merged with Old French fuers outside, beyond from Latin foris, Latin foris was not used as a prefix in Classical Latin, but shows up as a prefix in Medieval Latin following the Germanic invasions. Prefix en-, em- was extended to fit new formations not previously found in Latin, influenced or calqued from Frankish *in- and *an-, usually with an intensive or perfective sense, emballer, emblaver, endosser, enhardir, enjoliver, enrichir, envelopper, etc. The inversion of subject-verb to verb-subject to form the interrogative is characteristic of the Germanic languages but is not found in any of the major Romance languages, in Walloon, the order adjective + noun is the general rule, as in Old French and North Cotentin Norman. Several words calqued or modeled on corresponding terms in Germanic languages and this is the result of an earlier gap created between Latin and the new language, which was no longer mutually intelligible with it. This Germanic language shaped the popular Latin spoken here and gave it a distinctive identity compared to the other future Romance languages. Latin decima > F dîme, Vulgar Latin dignitate > OF deintié, otherwise two new phonemes that did not exist anymore in Vulgar Latin were added, and, e. g

60.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks

61.
Alsatian dialect
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Alsatian is a Low Alemannic German dialect spoken in most of Alsace, a region in eastern France which has passed between French and German control five times since 1681. A dialect of Alsatian German is spoken in the United States by so-called Swiss Amish, the approximately 7,000 speakers are mainly located in Allen County, Indiana but also in daughter settlements elsewhere. Alsatian is closely related to other nearby Alemannic dialects, such as Swiss German, Swabian and it is often confused with Lorraine Franconian, a more distantly related Franconian dialect spoken in the northwest corner of Alsace and in neighbouring Lorraine. Like other dialects and languages, Alsatian has also influenced by outside sources. Words of Yiddish origin can be found in Alsatian, and modern conversational Alsatian includes adaptations of French words and English words, many speakers of Alsatian could, if necessary, write in reasonable standard German. For most this would be rare and confined to those who have learned German at school or through work, as with other dialects, various factors determine when, where, and with whom one might converse in Alsatian. Some dialect speakers are unwilling to speak standard German, at times, to certain outsiders, some street names in Alsace may use Alsatian spellings. C, Q, and X are only used in loanwords, Y is also used in native words such as Dytschi, but is more common in loanwords. Alsatian, like some German dialects, has lenited all obstruents and its lenes are, however, voiceless as in all Southern German varieties. Therefore, they are here transcribed /b̥/, /d̥/, /ɡ̊/, the phoneme /ç/ has a velar allophone after back vowels, and palatal elsewhere. In southern dialects, there is a tendency to pronounce it /x/ in all positions, short vowels, /ʊ/, /o/, /ɒ/, /a/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /i/, /y/. Long vowels, /ʊː/, /oː/, /ɒː/, /aː/, /ɛː/, /eː/, /iː/, /yː/ Since 1992, however, Alsatian, along with other regional languages, is recognized by the French government in the official list of languages of France. France is a signatory to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages but has never ratified the law and has not given regional languages the support that would be required by the charter. The policies of the Paris government have had the effect of greatly weakening the prevalence of native languages in France that are not French. As a result, the Alsatian dialect of German has gone from being the prevalent language of the region to one in decline, a 1999 INSEE survey counted 548,000 adult speakers of Alsatian in France, making it the second most-spoken regional language in the country. Like all regional languages in France, however, the transmission of Alsatian is on the decline, while 43% of the adult population of Alsace speaks Alsatian, its use has been largely declining amongst the youngest generations. La dynamique des langues en France au fil du XXe siècle, lalsacien, deuxième langue régionale de France Insee, Chiffres pour lAlsace no. Le dialecte à la portée de tous La Nuée Bleue,1999, ISBN 2-7165-0464-4 Matzen, Raymond, and Léon Daul

62.
Navarro-Lapurdian dialect
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Navarro-Labourdin or Navarro-Lapurdian is a Basque dialect spoken in the Lower Navarre and Labourd former provinces of the French Basque Country. It consists of two dialects in older classifications, Lower Navarrese and Labourdin and it differs somewhat from Upper Navarrese spoken in the Spanish Basque Country. Lower Navarrese or Low Navarrese is actually two subdialects, eastern and western, the western dialect continues into eastern Labourd, Labourdin is spoken in western Lapurdi. Classic Labourdin was a language of the 17th century, used by authors such as Axular. The type of stress in Hondarribian Basque is considered to be a remainder of the one that may have been used in Classic Lapurdian. Salazarese, spoken in Spain, was thought to be a subdialect of Navarro-Lapurdian

Navarro-Lapurdian dialect
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Navarro-Lapurdian

63.
Northern Catalan
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Northern Catalan is a Catalan dialect mostly spoken in Northern Catalonia, but also extending in the northeast part of Southern Catalonia in a transition zone with Central Catalan. As this is an Eastern Catalan dialect, unstressed /a/ and /e/ are realized as schwa and it is also the Catalan dialect with the fewest stressed vowels, only five, /i e a o u/. There are some instances of historic stressed /o/ that has changed to /u/, as in Balearic dialects, final as are not pronounced in words ending with ia and containing the stress before the penultimate syllable. Some subdialects keep the singular definite article lo, as in North-Western Catalan. Northern Catalan has a body of words imported from French

64.
Antillean Creole French
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Antillean Creole is a French-based creole, which is primarily spoken in the Lesser Antilles. Its grammar and vocabulary include elements of Carib and African languages, Antillean Creole is related to Haitian Creole but has a number of distinctive features, however, they are mutually intelligible. The language was more widely spoken in the Lesser Antilles. While the islands of Dominica and Saint Lucia are officially English-speaking, there are efforts to preserve the use of Antillean Creole, as well as in Trinidad & Tobago and its neighbour, Venezuela. In recent decades, Creole has gone from being seen as a sign of lower status, banned in school playgrounds. Since the 1970s, there has been a revival of Creole in the French-speaking islands of the Lesser Antilles, with writers such as Raphaël Confiant. Edouard Glissant has written theoretically and poetically about its significance and its history, Dominican, Grenadian, St. Lucian, Trinidadian, Brazilian and Venezuelan speakers of Antillean Creole call the language patois. It is also spoken in various Creole-speaking immigrant communities in the United States Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, Antillean Creole has approximately 1 million speakers and is a means of communication for migrant populations traveling between neighbouring English- and French-speaking territories. Pierre Belain dEsnambuc was a French trader and adventurer in the Caribbean who established the first permanent French colony, Saint-Pierre, Belain sailed to the Caribbean in 1625, hoping to establish a French settlement on the island of St. Christopher. In 1626, he returned to France, where he won the support of Cardinal Richelieu to establish French colonies in the region, Richelieu became a shareholder in the Compagnie de Saint-Christophe, created to accomplish this with dEsnambuc at its head. The company was not particularly successful, and Richelieu had it reorganized as the Compagnie des Îles de lAmérique, in 1635, dEsnambuc sailed to Martinique with one hundred French settlers to clear land for sugarcane plantations. After six months on Martinique, dEsnambuc returned to St. Christopher and his nephew, Jacques Dyel du Parquet, inherited dEsnambucs authority over the French settlements in the Caribbean. Dyel du Parquet became governor of the island and he remained in Martinique and did not concern himself with the other islands. The French permanently settled on Martinique and Guadeloupe after being driven off Saint Kitts, Fort Royal on Martinique was a major port for French battle ships in the region from which the French were able to explore the region. In 1638, Dyel du Parquet decided to have Fort Saint Louis built to protect the city against enemy attacks, the king would name the governor general of the company, and the company would name he governors of the various islands. However, by the late 1640s, Mazarin had little interest in colonial affairs, in 1651, it dissolved itself, selling its exploitation rights to various parties. The Du Paquet family bought Martinique, Grenada, and Saint Lucia for 60,000 livres, the sieur dHouël bought Guadeloupe, Marie-Galante, La Desirade and the Saintes. The Knights of Malta bought Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin, which were made dependencies of Guadeloupe, in 1665, the Knights sold the islands that they had acquired to the newly formed Compagnie des Indes occidentales

Antillean Creole French
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Road sign in residential area in Guadeloupe. Slow down. Children are playing here.

65.
Languages of Albania
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Albania is an ethnically homogeneous country, where the overwhelming majority of the population speaks Albanian, which is also the official language. It has two dialects, Tosk, spoken in the south, and Gheg, spoken in the north. However many Albanians speak Italian, Greek, French, German, English amongst other languages too, due to the numbers of Albanian diaspora. Albania is one of the most polyglot nations in Europe, many Albanians at home, in the region and around the world speak more than two languages. Italian is widely spoken throughout Albania, Greek, the language of the Greek minority of the south, is also very widespread in that region. Nowadays, knowledge of English is growing rapidly, especially among the youth. Various languages are spoken by minorities, Greek, Macedonian. The Article 14 of the Albanian Constitution states that The official language in the Republic of Albania is Albanian, according to the 2011 population census,2,765,610,98. 767% of the population declared Albanian as their mother tongue. Standard Albanian is based on Tosk dialect, spoken in the south, Gheg is spoken in the north and also by Kosovo Albanians. The traditional border between the two dialects in Shkumbin River, although they are somewhat different, they are mutually intelligible. Other dialects include Arbereshe, Cham and Arvanitika spoken in Italy, Greek is the largest minority language of Albania and first largest foreign language. Because the number of Greeks in Albania is disputed, the number of native speakers of Greek is unknown. The Greeks of Albania speak a modern southern Greek dialect, known as Northern Epirote Greek, alongside Albanian loanwords, it retains some archaic forms and words that are no longer used in Standard Modern Greek, as well as in the Greek dialects of southern Epirus. Despite the relatively small distances between the towns and villages, there exists some dialectal variation, most noticeably in accent. In addition, many Albanians have knowledge of Greek, mainly due to past immigration to Greece, Greek is co-official in numerous municipalities and regions in Southern Albania. Aromanian is the language for about 100,000 to 200,000 Aromanians of Albania. They mostly live in the southern and central regions of the country, the Aromanians, under the name Vlachs, are a recognized cultural minority in the Albanian law. According to the 1989 census, there were approximately 5,000 Macedonian language-speakers in Albania, most of these people live in the southeastern part of the country in the Lake Prespa region

Languages of Albania
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Wall writing in Dhërmi. The text reads "Welcome to Drymades" in Greek.
Languages of Albania
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Depiction of regions which also include a traditional presence of ethnic or linguistic groups alongside Albanians.

66.
Languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina
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The census results are contested by the Republika Srpska statistical office and by Bosnian Serb politicians, who oppose the inclusion of non-permanent Bosnian residents in the figures. The European Unions statistics office, Eurostat, however concluded the methodology used by the Bosnian statistical agency to be in line with international recommendations. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, religion is linked to ethnicity, i. e. most Bosniaks are Muslim, Serbs are Orthodox Christian. Bosnias constitution does not specify any official languages, the equal status of Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian was verified by the Constitutional Court in 2000. As a result, the wording of the entity constitutions was changed, the three languages are mutually intelligible and are also known collectively as Serbo-Croatian. Use of one of the three varieties has become a marker of ethnic identity, michael Kelly and Catherine Baker argue, The three official languages of todays Bosnian state. represent the symbolic assertion of national identity over the pragmatism of mutual intelligibility. All standard varieties are based on the Ijekavian varieties of the Shtokavian dialect, Bosnian and Serbian are written in both Latin and Cyrillic, whereas Croatian is written only in Latin alphabet. There are also speakers of Italian, German, Turkish. Yugoslav Sign Language is used with Croatian and Serbian variants, a 2012 survey found that 54% of Bosnias Muslims are non-denominational Muslims, while 38% follow Sunnism. In Bosnia and Herzegovina religion is linked to ethnicity. The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated

Languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Population density in Bosnia and Herzegovina by municipality, early data from the 2013 census

67.
Languages of Croatia
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The demographic characteristics of the population of Croatia are known through censuses, normally conducted in ten-year intervals and analysed by various statistical bureaus since the 1850s. The Croatian Bureau of Statistics has performed this task since the 1990s, the latest census in Croatia was performed in April 2011. The permanent population of Croatia at the 2011 census had reached 4.29 million, the population density is 75.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, and the overall life expectancy in Croatia at birth was 78 years in 2012. The population rose steadily from 2.1 million in 1857 until 1991, since 1991, Croatias death rate has continuously exceeded its birth rate, the natural growth rate of the population is negative. Croatia is in the fourth or fifth stage of the demographic transition, in terms of age structure, the population is dominated by the 15‑ to 64‑year‑old segment. The median age of the population is 41.4, demographics professors from Zagreb Faculty of Economics predict that the population will decrease by 350.000 people by 2030, based on current number of children born and people emigrating. Experts believe both options are unlikely, Croatia is inhabited mostly by Croats, while minorities include Serbs, and 21 other ethnicities. Late 19th century and the 20th century were marked by large scale economic migrations abroad, the 1940s and the 1950s in Yugoslavia were marked by internal migrations in Yugoslavia, as well as by urbanisation. The most recent significant migrations came as a result of the Croatian War of Independence when hundreds of thousands were displaced, the Croatian language is the official language, but minority languages are officially used in some local government units. Croatian is declared as the language by 95. 60% of the population. A2009 survey revealed that 78% of Croatians claim knowledge of at least one foreign language—most often English, the main religions of Croatia are Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Islam. Literacy in Croatia stands at 98. 1%, the proportion of the population aged 15 and over attaining academic degrees grew rapidly since 2001, doubling and reaching 16. 7% by 2008. An estimated 4. 5% of the GDP is spent for education, primary and secondary education are available in Croatian and in languages of recognised minorities. Croatia has a health care system and in 2010, the nation spent 6. 9% of its GDP on healthcare. Net monthly income in September 2011 averaged 5,397 kuna, the most significant sources of employment in 2008 were manufacturing industry, wholesale and retail trade and construction. In October 2011, unemployment rate was 17. 4%, Croatias median equivalent household income tops average Purchasing Power Standard of the ten countries which joined the EU in 2004, while trailing the EU average. 2011 census recorded a total of 1.5 million private households, average urbanisation rate in Croatia stands at 56%, with augmentation of urban population and reduction of rural population. With a population of 4.29 million in 2011, Croatia ranks 125th in the world by population and its population density is 75.8 inhabitants per square kilometre

Languages of Croatia
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An official briefcase used by the Croatian Bureau of Statistics census takers for the purposes of the 2011 census
Languages of Croatia
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Population of Croatia (in thousands) from 1857–2011
Languages of Croatia
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A 1930s ad for shipping lines to South America
Languages of Croatia
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State Office for Croats Abroad in Zagreb

68.
Languages of the Czech Republic
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Population loss during World War I was approximately 350,000. At the beginning of World War II the population of the Czech Republic reached its maximum, due to the expulsion of the German residents after World War II, the Czech Republic lost about 3 million inhabitants and in 1947 the population was only 8.8 million. Population growth resumed, and in 1994 the population was 10.33 million, from 1994-2003 natural growth was slightly negative and the population decreased to 10.2 million. The following statistics on age structure and sex ratio are from the CIA World Factbook, male,75.2 yearsfemale,81.1 years total, The majority of the 10.5 million inhabitants of the Czech Republic are ethnically and linguistically Czech. They are descendants of Slavic people from the Black Sea-Carpathian region who settled in Bohemia, Moravia, other ethnic groups include Germans, Romani, Poles and Hungarians. Historical minorities like Germans and Poles are declining due to assimilation, the Roma community is growing, while there is also a growing Vietnamese community. Other ethnic communities like Greeks, Turks, Italians and Yugoslavs are found in the capital city, since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, Slovaks living in the Czech Republic have comprised roughly 3% of the population. There are different groups of national and ethnic minorities in the Czech Republic, the so-called old minorities live mostly in specific areas while the new minorities are scattered among the majority population. While some of the minorities have the social structure of Czech society. 1 In 2011 a large part of the population boycotted the nationality question as a sign of protest against government sponsored census, the legal position of the minorities is defined foremost in the Act No. There is a number of other enactments which to lesser extent deal with the minorities, a special situation applies in the case of Moravians and Silesians, who are frequently allocated within the group of Czechs when it comes to the statistical data. Minorities, which traditionally and on a term basis live within the territory of the Czech Republic enjoy some privileges. Citizens belonging to the recognized minorities enjoy the right to use their language in communication with authorities. In the case that the agency does not have an employee with knowledge of the language. 273/2001 paragraph 9 the same applies to members of national minorities in the courts of law. The economic migration of Bulgarians to the Czech Republic began in the 1990s,4,363 citizens claimed to have Bulgarian nationality in the 2001 census. They mostly live in the cities and towns, such as Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Karlovy Vary, Kladno, Ústí nad Labem, Děčín. Nowadays the newcomers from Bulgaria aim for these areas in particular, many of these economic immigrants have dual citizenship of both the Czech Republic and Bulgaria

Languages of the Czech Republic
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A footpath on Wenceslas Square
Languages of the Czech Republic
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Population of the Czech Republic on January 1st, 1960 to 2014 in millions, Eurostat data.
Languages of the Czech Republic
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Local traditional clothes
Languages of the Czech Republic
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The most commonly known foreign languages in the Czech Republic in 2005. According to Eurostat

69.
Languages of Denmark
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The Kingdom of Denmark has only one official language, Danish, the national language of the Danish people, but there are several minority languages spoken through the territory. These include German, Faroese, and Greenlandic, a large majority of Danes also speak English as a second language, it is mandatory for Danish students to learn from the first grade in Folkeskole. In the fifth grade of Folkeskole, a language option is given. The third most widely understood language is Swedish, with 13% of Danes reporting to be able to speak it, German is an official minority language in the former South Jutland County, which was part of Imperial Germany prior the Treaty of Versailles. Between 15,000 and 20,000 Ethnic Germans live in South Jutland, schleswigisch is highly divergent from Standard German and can be quite difficult to understand by Standard German speakers. Outside of South Jutland, the members of St. Peters Church in Copenhagen use German in their Church, its website, and the school that it runs. The German minority operates its own system of schools with German as the primary language of instruction as well as a system of libraries throughout South Jutland. It also operates a German high school located in Aabenraa, beside this there are also 28,584 immigrants from Germany in Denmark by 2012. Faroese, a North Germanic language like Danish, is the language of the Faroe Islands. It is also spoken by some Faroese immigrants to mainland Denmark, Faroese is similar to Icelandic, and also the Old Norse language spoken in the Scandinavian area more than a millennium ago. Greenlandic is the language of the 54,000 Inuit living in Greenland, which is, like the Faroe Islands. Roughly 7,000 people speak Greenlandic on the Danish mainland, jutlandic dialect Minority languages of Denmark

70.
Languages of Estonia
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The official language of Estonia is Estonian, a Uralic language which is related to Finnish. It is unrelated to the bordering Russian and Latvian languages, both of which are Indo-European, Standard Estonian is mainly based on the North Estonian language, while South Estonian comprises several dialects, specifically Võro, Mulgi and Tartu. Võro, being furthest away from Standard Estonian, is the one to have been given an ISO 639-3 language code by SIL. Võru is widely accepted to have a subdialect Setu, although some consider it a separate language, Russian is by far the most spoken minority language in the country. There are towns in Estonia with large concentration of Russian-language community, the Baltic Germans were mostly ethnically German inhabitants of the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, which today form the countries of Estonia and Latvia. The Baltic German population never made up more than 10% of the total and they formed the social, commercial, political and cultural élite in that region for several centuries. Some of them also took positions in the military and civilian life of the Russian Empire. Today there are very few Germans living in Estonia aside from some residents from Germany. The German language is the third most popular language among Estonians. The Estonian Swedes, are a Swedish-speaking linguistic minority traditionally residing in the coastal areas, almost all of Estonias Swedish-speaking minority fled to Sweden during World War II, and only the descendants of a few individuals who opted to stay are permanently resident in Estonia today. The Estonian Sign Language is the sign language of Estonia. In 1998 there were about 4,500 signers out a population of 1,600 deaf and 20,000 hearing impaired. In its formative stages, Estonian Sign Language was influenced by Russian and Finnish Sign Language, for example, there are several dialects, the most archaic of which is the Pärnu variety

Languages of Estonia
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Estonia with contemporary South Estonian highlighted.

71.
Languages of Finland
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The two main official languages of Finland are Finnish and Swedish. There are also several minority languages, three variants of Sami, Romani, Finnish Sign Language and Karelian. Finnish is the language of the majority, 91% of the population and it is a Finnic language closely related to Estonian and less closely to the Sami languages. The Finnic languages belong to the Uralic language family, so Finnish is distantly related to languages as diverse as Hungarian, Swedish is the main language of 5. 4% of the population, down from 14% at the beginning of the 20th century. In 2012, 44% of Finnish citizens with another registered primary language than Swedish could hold a conversation in this language, Swedish is a North Germanic language, closely related to Norwegian and Danish. As a subbranch of Indo-European, it is closely related to other Germanic languages such as German. Swedish was the language of the administration until the late 19th century, today it is one of the two main official languages, with a position equal to Finnish in most legislation, though the working language in most governmental bodies is Finnish. Both Finnish and Swedish are compulsory subjects in school with an exception for children with a language as their native language. A successfully completed language test is a prerequisite for governmental offices where a university degree is required, the four largest Swedish-speaking communities in Finland, in absolute numbers, are those of Helsinki, Espoo, Porvoo and Vaasa, where they constitute significant minorities. Helsinki, the capital, had a Swedish-speaking majority until late in the 19th century, currently 6. 1% of the population of Helsinki are Swedish-speaking and 9. 6% speaks languages other than Finnish and Swedish. The Swedish dialects spoken in Finland mainland are known as Finland-Swedish, there is a rich Finland-Swedish literature, including authors such as Tove Jansson, Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Edith Södergran and Zacharias Topelius. Runeberg is considered Finlands national poet and wrote the anthem, Vårt land. The Sami languages are a group of related languages spoken across Lapland and they are distantly related to Finnish. The three Sami languages spoken in Finland, Northern Sami, Inari Sami and Skolt Sami, have a native speaker population of roughly 1,800. Up to World War II, Karelian was spoken in the historical Border-Karelian region on the shore of Lake Ladoga. After the war immigrant Karelians were settled all over Finland, in 2001 the Karelian Language Society estimated that the language is understood by 11, 000–12,000 people in Finland, most of whom are elderly. A more recent estimate is that the size of the community is 30,000. Karelian was recognized in a regulation by the President in November 2009, in fact, Finland places among the top four countries in the world when it comes to the fluency of English

Languages of Finland
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Knowledge of foreign languages and Swedish as second language in Finland, in percent of the adult population, 2005.
Languages of Finland
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QWERTY Basic Finnish/Swedish Finnish Multilingual
Languages of Finland
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Proportions of main languages in Finland 2007.
Languages of Finland
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Number of speakers of the largest unofficial languages in Finland, 2007.

72.
Languages of Germany
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The official language of Germany is Standard German, with over 95 percent of the country speaking Standard German or German dialects as their first language. This figure includes speakers of Northern Low Saxon, a minority or regional language that is not considered separately from Standard German in statistics. Recognized minority languages have official status as well, usually in their respective regions,1. 8% Kurdish c.0. 3% Tamil Russian Arabic Greek Dutch Igbo Polish Serbo-Croatian Italian Most Germans learn English as their first foreign language at school. Sometimes French or Latin are taught first, but usually English is, with French, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Dutch, classical Greek, and other languages are also offered in schools, often depending on the schools geographic location. The recognition of English as a language is frequently discussed in the German public

73.
Languages of Greece
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The official language of Greece is Greek, spoken by 99% of the population. In addition, a number of non-official, minority languages and some Greek dialects are spoken as well, the most common foreign languages learned by Greeks are English, German, French and Italian. Modern Greek is the official language of the Hellenic Republic. Standard Modern Greek is the officially used standard, but there are several non-official dialects, regional spoken dialects exist side by side with learned, archaic written forms. All surviving forms of modern Greek, except the Tsakonian language, are descendants of the common supra-regional as it was spoken in late antiquity, as such, they can ultimately be classified as descendants of Attic Greek, the dialect spoken in and around Athens in the classical era. Tsakonian, a dialect spoken today by a dwindling community in the Peloponnese, is a descendant of the ancient Doric dialect. Some other dialects have preserved elements of various ancient non-Attic dialects, cappadocian Greek is a Hellenic language originally spoken in Cappadocia and since the 1920s spoken in Greece. It has very few speakers and was thought to be extinct. The Cappadocians rapidly shifted to Standard Modern Greek and their language was thought to be extinct since the 1960s, cretan Greek is spoken by more than 500,000 people on the island of Crete, as well as in the Greek Diaspora. It is rarely used in language, and differs much less from Standard Greek than other varieties. Cypriot Greek is spoken by Greek Cypriots, settled in many Greek cities, and in other parts of the world including Australia, Canada. The Maniot Greek dialect of the area of Mani. Pontic Greek is a Hellenic language originally spoken in Pontus and by Caucasus Greeks in the South Caucasus region, the little-spoken Tsakonian language is used by some in the Tsakonia region of Peloponnese. The language is split into three dialects, Northern, Southern, and Propontis, the language is spoken by 1,200 people. A Jewish dialect of Greek spoken by the Romaniotes, Yevanic is almost completely extinct today, there are a total of roughly 50 speakers, around 35 of whom now reside in Israel. The language may still be used by some elderly Romaniotes in Ioannina, Greek Sign Language is the sign language of the Greek deaf community. It has been recognised as the official language of the Deaf Community in Greece and is estimated to be used by about 42,000 signers in 1986. Since the 1990s, large numbers of Albanian immigrants have arrived in Greece and it is unofficially claimed that 1,000,000 Greeks are of Albanian descent, either by ancestry, marriage or immigration

74.
Languages of Hungary
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The languages spoken in Hungary are as follows. Uralic languages – Hungarian, The only official language of the country and it is the first language of some 98. 9% of the total population. Indo-European languages – German, spoken by the German minority, especially in and around Mecsek Mountains, – Slovak, spoken by the Slovak minority, especially in the North Hungarian Mountains and around Békéscsaba. – Serbian, spoken by the Serbian minority, especially in and around Bácska, – Slovene, spoken by the Slovene minority, especially around the Slovenian border, Western Hungary. – Croatian, spoken by the Croatian minority, especially in Southern Hungary, – Romanian, spoken by the Romanian minority, especially in and around Gyula, Eastern Hungary. – Romani, spoken by members of the Roma minority throughout the country. Turkic languages – Cuman, once spoken in Cumania region in Hungary and it is a Kipchak language closely related to other Kipchak languages like Crimean Tatar. The last speaker died in 1777, – Kipchak, once spoken in Eastern Europe which includes Hungary. It is the lingua franca of the Golden Horde controlled areas and it is the ancestor of all Kipchak languages today, which also includes the extinct Cuman. Sign languages – Hungarian Sign Language, spoken by around 9,000 people and it belongs to French Sign Language family. Hungary Hungarian language Demographics of Hungary

75.
Languages of Iceland
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Iceland has been a very isolated and linguistically homogeneous island historically, but has nevertheless been home to several languages. Gaelic was native to many of the early Icelanders, the Icelandic or Norse language however prevailing, northern trade routes brought German, English, Dutch, French and Basque. Some merchants and clergymen settled in Iceland throughout the centuries, leaving their mark on culture, excluding these and Latin words, Icelandic has altered remarkably little since settlement, the islands residents living in seclusion. Icelandic is not only the language, but is now “the official language in Iceland” by virtue of Act No 61/2011. Icelandic Sign Language was also recognised by law in 2011 as a minority language with constitutional rights. During the time of Danish rule, Danish was a minority language in Iceland, studying English and Danish is mandatory for students in compulsory schools and also part of many secondary-level study programmes, so knowledge of the two languages is widespread. Other foreign languages frequently studied include German, Spanish and French, temporary visitors and residents often make up a large portion of the population, especially in the capital Reykjavík

Languages of Iceland

76.
Languages of Ireland
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There are a number of languages used in Ireland. Since the late century, English has been the predominant first language. A large minority claims some ability to use Irish, and it is the first language for a percentage of the population. In the Republic of Ireland, under the Constitution of Ireland, Northern Ireland has no official language, but English is the de facto official language of the United Kingdom and Irish and Ulster-Scots are recognised regional languages. The earliest linguistic records in Ireland are of Primitive Irish, from about the 5th century AD, Languages spoken in Iron Age Ireland before then are now irretrievable, although there are some claims of traces in Irish toponymy. Middle English was first introduced by the Cambro-Norman settlers in the 12th century and it did not initially take hold as a widely spoken language, as the Norman élite spoke Anglo-Norman. In time, many Norman settlers intermarried and assimilated to the Irish cultures, monolingual Irish speakers were generally of the poorer and less educated classes with no land. Irish was accepted as a language, but then as now, fluency in English was an essential element for those who wanted social mobility. Since the 1850s, English medium education was promoted by both the UK administration and the Roman Catholic Church and this greatly assisted the waves of immigrants forced to seek new lives in the US and throughout the Empire after the Famine. Since then the various local Hiberno-English dialects comprise the vernacular language throughout the island. The 2002 census found that 103,000 British citizens were living in the Republic of Ireland, along with 11,300 from the US and 8,900 from Nigeria, the 2006 census listed 165,000 people from Britain and 22,000 from the US. The original Primitive Irish was introduced by Celtic speakers, Primitive Irish gradually evolved into Old Irish, spoken between the 5th and the 10th centuries, and then into Middle Irish. Today, Irish is recognised as the first official language of the Republic of Ireland and is recognised in Northern Ireland. Communities that speak Irish as their first language, generally in sporadic regions on the islands west coast, are called the Gaeltacht. According to more detailed data, in 2011, there has been an increase of 5,000 in the number of daily Irish speakers since the previous census. There are 77,185 daily speakers, a third of which are located in the Gaeltacht and the remaining 55,554 are located in the rest of the country as well as another estimated 109,663 weekly speakers. In the over 80 years since the independence of the South, more and more people are becoming passive speakers of Irish with an estimated 10% of the population of the Republic who would be classified as fluent, near fluent or reasonably good passive speakers. All of the 40 or so radio stations in the Republic have to have some weekly Irish-language programming to obtain their broadcasting licence, similarly, RTÉ runs Nuacht, a news show, in Irish and Léargas, a documentary show, in Irish with English subtitles

Languages of Ireland
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A catch and release sign in Ireland. As well as Ireland's official languages (English and Irish), it also displays languages used by tourists (French, German, Swedish, Italian) and immigrants (Bosnian, Latvian, Polish, Czech, Serbo-Croat). However, perhaps reflecting Ireland's recent transition to multilingualism, many translations are imperfect and diacritics are mostly absent.

77.
Languages of Liechtenstein
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Liechtensteins official language is German, and the principality is the smallest of the four countries in Europe populated by a majority of German speakers. Other languages are spoken by the foreign-born population, which makes up about 14% of the country. ). Eighty-six percent of the country is ethnic Alemannic, and are speakers of the language, Highest Alemannic is spoken in the south of the country, and High Alemannic in the rest of the country. It can be difficult to achieve mutual intelligibility between Alemannic and Standard German, especially with the Highest Alemannic variety, foreigners make up around 14% of the population of Liechtenstein, primarily Italians and Turks. Italian and Turkish are both spoken in the country and this article incorporates public domain material from the CIA World Factbook document 2006 edition

Languages of Liechtenstein
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The Highest Alemannic-speaking part of Liechtenstein is marked in red, in the south of the country. The rest of Liechtenstein is High Alemannic speaking.

78.
Languages of the Netherlands
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The official national language of the Netherlands is Dutch, spoken by almost all people in the Netherlands. Dutch is also spoken and official in Aruba, Belgium, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and it is a West Germanic, Low Franconian language that originated in the Early Middle Ages and was standardised in the 16th century. There are also some recognised provincial languages and regional dialects, Frisian is a co-official language in the province of Friesland. Frisian is spoken by 453,000 speakers English is a language in the special municipalities of Saba. It is widely spoken on Saba and Sint Eustatius, a large majority of primary and secondary education in Amsterdam remains in Dutch only, but there are some bilingual Dutch-English schools. On Saba and St. Eustatius, the majority of the education is in English only, papiamento is an official language in the special municipality of Bonaire. Several dialects of Dutch Low Saxon are spoken in much of the north-east of the country and are recognised as regional languages according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Low Saxon is spoken by 1,798,000 speakers. Another Low Franconian dialect is Limburgish, which is spoken in the province of Limburg. Limburgish is spoken by 825,000 speakers, however, both Low Saxon and Limburgish spread across the Dutch-German border and belong to a common Dutch-German dialect continuum. The Netherlands also has its separate Dutch Sign Language, called Nederlandse Gebarentaal and it is still waiting for recognition and has 17,500 users. There is a trend of learning languages in the Netherlands, between 90% and 93% of the total population are able to converse in English, 71% in German, 29% in French. West Frisian is a language in the Dutch province of Friesland. The government of the Frisian province is bilingual, Luxembourgish is divided into Moselle Luxembourgish, West Luxembourgish, East Luxembourgish, North Luxembourgish and City Luxembourgish. The Oïl dialects in the Benelux are Walloon, Lorrain, Champenois and Picard

Languages of the Netherlands

79.
Languages of Norway
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There are a large number of languages spoken in Norway. Of these, the Norwegian language is the most widely spoken, the most widely spoken language in Norway is Norwegian. It is a North Germanic language, closely related to Swedish and Danish, Norwegian is used by some 95% of the population as a first language. The language has two written standards, Nynorsk and Bokmål, both of which are official. Known as Språkstriden in Norwegian, the Norwegian language struggle is a movement rooted in both Norwegian nationalism and the 400 years of Danish rule in Norway. The koiné language known as Dano-Norwegian which developed in Norwegian cities was the result of Danish replacing Norwegian as the language of the elite in that country, an adoption of Norwegian orthography into the Danish language gave rise to the written standard of Riksmål, which later became Bokmål. By 1920, Nynorsk was being used widely in western Norway and the valleys, where it still has its stronghold. Later, attempts were made to reconcile the two standards into Samnorsk, or Common Norwegian, although this never came to fruition, Riksmål was officially changed to Bokmål in 1929. Nynorsk was developed by the linguist Ivar Aasen in the 1850s, based on rural, spoken Norwegian and its first official codification was in 1901, was given the name Nynorsk in 1929, and has been used officially since 1938. A more conservative variation of Nynorsk exists, called Høgnorsk and it has few active users, but is supported by the Ivar Aasen-sambandet organization, founded in 1965 in response to the samnorsk policy of the government at the time. Sami languages, like Kven and Finnish, belong to the Uralic language family, by far the most spoken form of Sami in Norway is North Sami. The others are Lule Sami, Pite Sami and South Sami, Sami languages are official in seven Norwegian municipalities. Mirroring the situation of Meänkieli in Sweden, Kven is sometimes considered to be a dialect of Finnish, the Romani people are a diaspora population originating in India, and today are spread across all of Europe. The Romani language, an Indo-European, Indo-Aryan language, is split into a number of dialects. Two of these, Tavringer Romani and Vlax Romani, are spoken in Norway, by populations of 6,000 and 500, scandoromani is another Romani dialect indigenous to Norway, as well as Sweden. Because of the nature of the Roma people, there is no geographic stronghold of the Romani language in Norway. There is no estimate on how many Norwegian Traveller speakers there are in Norway, nearly 90% of Norwegians can speak English. The country currently scores in the top 5 of the EF English Proficiency Index and this article incorporates public domain material from the CIA World Factbook document 2006 edition

Languages of Norway
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The Kingdom of Denmark-Norway until 1814.

80.
Languages of Romania
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In Romania there are several spoken languages. Beside Romanian, the official language nationwide, other spoken languages include Hungarian, English, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Slovak, Romani, Ukrainian. According to the 2002 Romanian Census, Romanian is spoken by 91% of the population as a primary language, according to the Romanian Constitution and the law 1206 of 2006 the only official language in Romania is the Romanian Language both at national and local level. While Romanian is the official language at the national and local level. The Romanian laws include linguistic rights for all minority groups that form over 20% of a localitys population. This includes the adoption of signage in minority languages, access to administration and justice systems, the right to receive education in that language. Hungarian is the largest minority language in Romania, the 2002 census listed 1,447,544 native Hungarian speakers in the country, or 6. 7% of the total population. This minority largely lives in Transylvania, which was part of the Kingdom of Hungary until 1918 though there are Hungarian speaking minorities in parts of the country as well. Roma make up the second largest minority in Romania and 241,617 Romani speakers were reported in the 2002 census, dialects of Romani spoken include Balkan Romani, Vlax Romani, and Carpathian Romani. Romani is used in signage, administration, education and justice in 79 communes. There are 57,593 Ukrainian speakers in Romania, mostly concentrated in Maramureș County, where make up 6. 67% of the population. Ukrainians make up the majority in four communes, Bistra, Maramureș, Rona de Sus, Știuca, there are many different groups of Germans in Romania, the largest of whom have historically been known as the Transylvania Saxons and the Banat Swabians. Germans once constituted a larger portion of the Romanian population than they do today. In 1938 there were 780,000, and in 1992 there were 111,301, since 1989 they have been represented by the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania, which functions in the German language. There are 29,890 Lipovans, ethnically Russian emigrants from the Russian Empire who left because of differences with the Russian Orthodox Church. They mostly speak the Russian language, and most live in Tulcea County, Turkish speakers make up 0. 1% of the population, with a community of some 28,714 speakers. The Turkish speaking community is largely a legacy of the Ottoman rule of a part of Romania. They live in the parts of Romania

Languages of Romania
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Trilingual (Romanian-Hungarian-German) signage in Satu Mare.
Languages of Romania
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Ethnic composition of Romania. Localities with Hungarian majority or plurality are shown in dark green.
Languages of Romania
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The location of Budești within Călărași County and of Călărași County within Romania.
Languages of Romania
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German/Romanian signage in Sibiu (known as Hermannstadt in German), home of the Transylvanian Landler.

81.
Languages of Serbia
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Serbia has only one nationwide official language, which is Serbian. Other languages spoken in Serbia include Albanian, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovak, Rusyn, Croatian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Romani, Czech, Bosnian, Vlach, Bunjevac, Macedonian, Montenegrin, etc. Serbian language predominates in most of Serbia, excluding slandnjnicipalities in Vojvodina and southern Serbia, Šumadija-Vojvodina and Eastern Herzegovina dialects are basys for modern standard Serbian. Throughout part of southern Serbia, a dialect by the name of Torlakian is spoken, although it has no standard form and continues to be spoken without any form of official status, Torlakian may be seen by some as constituting a separate language. It forms a part of the South Slavic dialect continuum, and is transitional between the eastern south Slavic languages and the western south Slavic languages, Serbian is a main language used by provincial administration and by all city and municipal administrations in Vojvodina. The other five languages are used by administration and by selected city or municipal administrations. In practice, Serbian is a lingua franca of the region, among other languages, Hungarian and Slovak are dominant in several municipalities, while other languages are dominant only in several villages. Albanian and Serbian are the two languages of Kosovo. Languages of Vojvodina This article incorporates public domain material from the CIA World Factbook document 2006 edition

Languages of Serbia
Languages of Serbia
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Linguistic map of Serbia

82.
Languages of Slovakia
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Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Slovakias territory spans about 49,000 square kilometres and is mostly mountainous. The population is over 5 million and comprises mostly ethnic Slovaks, the capital and largest city is Bratislava. The Slavs arrived in the territory of present-day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries, in the 7th century, they played a significant role in the creation of Samos Empire and in the 9th century established the Principality of Nitra. In the 10th century, the territory was integrated into the Kingdom of Hungary, which became part of the Habsburg Empire. After World War I and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a separate Slovak Republic existed in World War II as a client state of Nazi Germany. In 1945, Czechoslovakia was reëstablished under Communist rule as a Soviet satellite, in 1989 the Velvet Revolution ended authoritarian Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The country maintains a combination of economy with universal health care. The country joined the European Union in 2004 and the Eurozone on 1 January 2009, Slovakia is also a member of the Schengen Area, NATO, the United Nations, the OECD, the WTO, CERN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Visegrád Group. The Slovak economy is one of the fastest growing economies in Europe and its legal tender, the Euro, is the worlds 2nd most traded currency. Although regional income inequality is high, 90% of citizens own their homes, in 2016, Slovak citizens had visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 165 countries and territories, ranking the Slovak passport 11th in the world. Slovakia is the world’s biggest per-capita car producer with a total of 1,040,000 cars manufactured in the country in 2016 alone, the car industry represents 43 percent of Slovakia’s industrial output, and a quarter of its exports. Radiocarbon datingputs the oldest surviving archaeological artefacts from Slovakia – found near Nové Mesto nad Váhom – at 270,000 BC and these ancient tools, made by the Clactonian technique, bear witness to the ancient habitation of Slovakia. Other stone tools from the Middle Paleolithic era come from the Prévôt cave near Bojnice, the most important discovery from that era is a Neanderthal cranium, discovered near Gánovce, a village in northern Slovakia. The most well-known finds include the oldest female statue made of mammoth-bone, the statue was found in the 1940s in Moravany nad Váhom near Piešťany. Numerous necklaces made of shells from Cypraca thermophile gastropods of the Tertiary period have come from the sites of Zákovská, Podkovice, Hubina and these findings provide the most ancient evidence of commercial exchanges carried out between the Mediterranean and Central Europe. The Bronze Age in the territory of modern-day Slovakia went through three stages of development, stretching from 2000 to 800 BC

83.
Languages of Slovenia
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Slovenia has been a meeting area of the Slavic, Germanic, Romance, and Uralic linguistic and cultural regions, which makes it the most complex meeting point of languages in Europe. The official and national language of Slovenia is Slovene, which is spoken by a majority of the population. It is also known, in English, as Slovenian, two minority languages, namely Hungarian and Italian, are recognised as co-official languages and accordingly protected in their residential municipalities. Other significant languages are Croatian and its variants and Serbian, spoken by most immigrants from former Yugoslavia, Slovenia is ranked among the top European countries regarding the knowledge of foreign languages. The most often taught foreign languages are English and German, followed by Italian, French and it was followed by Croatian, Serbian and so-called Serbo-Croatian. Italian and Hungarian language, protected by the Constitution of Slovenia, had numbers of native speakers. In its Article 11, the Constitution of Slovenia stipulates that Slovene is to be the official and national language throughout the country. Television and radio broadcasts, newspapers, commercials, user manuals, usage of material in another language is permitted, if it is accordingly subtitled, dubbed or translated. Publishing or broadcasting untranslated material, as well as selling goods without instructions and declaration in Slovene, is punishable and banned by law. Also, names of corporations and trademarks registered in Slovenia must be in Slovene, however, Slovene is the language of instruction at all levels of schooling, from primary to tertiary education. Undergraduate courses are run in Slovene, therefore applicants from foreign countries must prove a level of knowledge of Slovene to be eligible to enroll. Graduate courses for exchange students are offered in English, as well. The Centre for Slovene as a Second/Foreign Language encourages the learning of Slovene as foreign language, offers different courses in Slovene, one may sit for the Slovene Language Exam at three levels, Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. With the accession of Slovenia to the European Union on May 1,2004, Slovene became a language of the European Union, requiring that all Acts. Additionally, Slovenian citizens may write to any EU institution in Slovene, Slovene is divided into seven regional dialectal groups, further subdivided into local dialects. Mutual comprehension between certain dialects is limited and this is the only Slovene dialect that has ever been attempted to be declared an official language in the Prekmurje region. It has a standardized written form, has been used in the liturgy. Italian is officially recognised as the tongue of the protected Italian minority and co-official language in Slovenian Istria near the Slovenian-Italian border

Languages of Slovenia
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The most commonly known foreign languages in Slovenia in 2005. According to Eurostat.
Languages of Slovenia
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Most spoken languages in Slovenia (Census 2002)

84.
Languages of Sweden
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Swedish is the official language of Sweden and is spoken by the vast majority of the 10 million inhabitants of the country. It is a North Germanic language and quite similar to its sister Scandinavian languages, Danish, for most of its history, Sweden was a larger country than today. At its height in 1658, the Swedish Empire comprised the territories of what is Finland and Estonia as well as parts of Russia, Latvia, Germany, Denmark, hence, Swedens linguistic landscape has historically been very different from that of today. Swedish evolved from Old Norse around the 14th and 15th century, and historically, since the 20th century Standard Swedish prevails throughout the country. The Scandinavian languages constitute a continuum and some of the traditional Swedish dialects could equally be described as Danish or Norwegian. Finnish was the majority language of Swedens eastern parts, though it was used almost exclusively as a spoken language and these areas were also home of a significant Swedish-speaking minority. Finnish became a minority language in the west as well since many Finnish speakers migrated there, estonian was the language of the majority in Swedish Estonia but the province, like Finland hosted a Swedish-speaking minority and also a more significant minority of Germans. In medieval Sweden, the Low German language had an important role as a commercial language. As such, the Low German language influenced Swedish and other languages in the region considerably, in medieval Stockholm, half of the population were Low German speakers. Livonia was also inhabited by Latvians, Estonians and Livonians, in Swedish Ingria, apart from Swedish also Finnish, Ingrian and Votian were spoken. Latin as the language of the Catholic Church was introduced in Sweden with the Christianisation, as in most of Europe, Latin remained the lingua franca and scholarly language of the educated communities for centuries in Sweden. For instance, Carl Linnaeus most famous work Systema Naturae, published in 1735, was written in Latin, during the 18th century, French was the second language of Europes upper classes and Sweden was no exception. The Swedish aristocracy often spoke French among themselves and code-switching between French and Swedish was common, the Swedish King Gustav III was a true Francophile and French was the common language at his court. Gradually Sweden lost its overseas possessions and obtained its current borders in 1809, as a consequence, Sweden became a rather homogeneous country with the exceptions of the indigenous Sami-people and the Finnish-speaking Tornedalians in the northernmost parts of the country. During the 19th century Sweden became more industrialised, resulting in important demographic changes, the population duplicated and people moved from the countryside to towns and cities. As a consequence, of this and factors such as generalised education and mass media, a large number of Swedes also decided to emigrate, especially to the United States. There, the Swedes came in contact with the English language, since then, as in the rest of Europe and much of the world, English has grown as an important foreign language in Sweden, especially since the allied victory in World War II. During the second half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century and it is unclear to what degree these communities will hold on to their languages and to what degree they will assimilate

Languages of Sweden
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Sign in German outside Stockholm's German Church, the church was built to serve the city's German population.
Languages of Sweden
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The first issue of Jidische Folkschtime (Yiddish People's Voice), a Yiddish-language newspaper first published in Stockholm, 12 January 1917
Languages of Sweden
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Knowledge of foreign languages in Sweden, in per cent of the population aged 15 and above, 2005. Data taken from an EU survey ebs_243_en.pdf (europa.eu).
Languages of Sweden
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Frequency of use of the English language in Sweden, 2005. According to the Eurobarometer.

85.
Languages of the United Kingdom
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English, in various dialects, is the most widely spoken language of the United Kingdom, however there are a number of regional languages also spoken. There are 11 indigenous languages spoken across the British Isles,5 Celtic,3 Germanic, there are also many immigrant languages spoken in the British Isles, mainly within inner city areas, these languages are mainly from South Asia and Eastern Europe. The de facto language of the United Kingdom is English. An estimated 700,000 people speak Welsh in the UK, a language in Wales. Approximately 1.5 million people in the UK speak Scots—although there is debate as to whether this is a distinct language, there is some discussion of the languages of the United Kingdoms three Crown dependencies, though they are not part of the United Kingdom. The table below outlines living indigenous languages of the United Kingdom, the languages of the Crown Dependencies are not included here. A significant number of English words are constructed based on roots from Latin, because Latin in some form was the lingua franca of the Christian Church, the language was further influenced by the Old Norse language with Viking invasions in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Great Vowel Shift that began in the south of England in the 15th century is one of the events marking the separation of Middle. Welsh emerged in the 6th century from Brittonic, the ancestor of Welsh, Breton, Cornish. Welsh is thus a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages, there are also Welsh speakers in Y Wladfa, a Welsh settlement in Argentina, which began in 1865 and is situated mainly along the coast of Chubut Province in the south of Patagonia. Chubut estimates the number of Patagonian Welsh speakers to be about 1,500, both the English and Welsh languages have equal status in Wales according to law. On 7 December 2010, the National Assembly for Wales unanimously approved a set of measures to develop the use of the Welsh language within Wales. On 9 February 2011, this measure received Royal Assent and was passed, the Welsh Language Board indicated in 2004 that 553,000 people were able to speak Welsh. Based on a definition, there has been a 0.9 percentage point increase when compared with the 2001 census. Welsh is therefore a growing language within Wales, of those 553,000 Welsh speakers, 57% were considered by others to be fluent, and 477,000 people consider themselves fluent or fair speakers. 62% of speakers claimed to speak the language daily, including 88% of fluent speakers, conversely, some first-language speakers may choose not to report themselves as such. These phenomena, also seen with other minority languages outside the UK, make it harder to establish an accurate, an estimated 110,000 to 150,000 people speak Welsh in England. Scottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland, a member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish

86.
Languages of Vatican City
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Vatican City is a city state that came into existence in 1929. It is therefore to be distinguished from the Holy See. The Vatican Constitution has established no official language by law, on its official website Vatican City uses Italian, English, French, German, and Spanish, Latin, Portuguese, Chinese, and Arabic, which are found on the official website of the Holy See. Many languages are used within the state, for instance, recruits to the Pontifical Swiss Guard take their oath in the language of the canton to which they belong, German, French or Italian. And the Holy Sees semi-official newspaper, LOsservatore Romano is published in Italian, English, French, German, Polish, Portuguese, a Malayalam edition was added in July 2008. The Holy See itself mainly uses Latin for its most important official documents, earlier still, it was part of the Roman Empire. During the monarchy and the age, the area was known as Ager Vaticanus. From the 2nd century A. D. the toponym Vaticanum was applied to an area corresponding roughly to the present Vatican City State

Languages of Vatican City
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Inscription in Italian over the entrance to the Vatican Museums

87.
Languages of Northern Cyprus
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The official languages of the Republic of Cyprus are Greek and Turkish. In the break-away Northern Cyprus, Turkish was made the official language by the 1983 constitution. The everyday spoken language of the majority of the population is Cypriot Greek, for official purposes, the standard languages are used. Three religious groups are recognised by the constitution, two have their own language, Armenian and Cypriot Arabic, sometimes Kurbetcha, the language of the Kurbet, the Cypriot Roma, is included alongside the other two in literature, but it is not officially recognised in any capacity. The 2011 census of the Republic recorded 679,883 native speakers of Greek,34,814 of English,24,270 of Romanian,20,984 of Russian and 18,388 of Bulgarian of a total of 840,407. CG has a tradition that flourished before the Ottoman conquest of 1571. SMG has been the language of instruction in Greek Cypriot education since the late 19th century and is the used in Greek-language media in the country. Indeed, Greek Cypriots are diglossic, with SMG the high and CG the low variety, itself a continuum that has been long undergoing levelling. SMG exerts an influence on CG, and CG speakers code-mix. Turkish Cypriots have traditionally been fluent in CG, meaning CG served as the lingua franca of the island. Two minority languages are covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Cyprus, Armenian, armenians have inhabited Cyprus since the sixth century AD, but about 9,000 more arrived from Turkey in the early 20th century to escape the Armenian Genocide. Of those, most moved on to other countries, today, Western Armenian is taught in Armenian schools and is the first language of about 3,000 people of Armenian descent in the Republic. Armenian Cypriots are bilingual in Greek and Armenian, in 2014, it was reported that there are 668 Armenian first-language speakers in Republic of Cyprus-controlled areas. It is not entirely clear when Arabic first made its way to Cyprus, today, Cypriot Arabic is moribund with efforts being made to revitalise it. It is spoken by an estimated 900 Cypriot Maronites, all over the age of 30, kormakitis was a long-time stronghold of the language, but most Maronites relocated to the south and spread after 1974, fuelling its—now very likely—death. CA has traits in common with some north Syrian and Mesopotamian dialects, Cypriot Arabic has not so far been codified, though there are plans to do so. In 2014, it was reported that, in the 2011 census, there is an unknown number of Roma, speakers of Kurbetcha, a creole with vocabulary that is predominantly Romani and Cypriot Turkish grammar, residing in Northern Cyprus. Kurbetcha is not protected by the Charter and has been little studied, proficiency in English is high, and Cypriots that receive education in English might code-switch between Cypriot Greek and English

88.
Languages of Gibraltar
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As Gibraltar is a British overseas territory, its sole official language is English, which is used by the Government and in schools. The eponymous Gibraltarian English accent is spoken in the territory, most locals are bilingual, also speaking Spanish, because of Gibraltars proximity to Spain. Most Gibraltarians converse in Llanito, their vernacular which is based on Andalusian Spanish. However, because of the mix of ethnic groups which reside there. Llanito is the local vernacular, and is unique to Gibraltar. It consists of a mix of Andalusian Spanish and British English, as well as languages such as Maltese, Portuguese, Italian of the Genoese variety. Andalusian Spanish is the constituent of Llanito, but is also heavily influenced by British English. However, it borrows words and expressions of many languages, with over 500 words of Genoese. It also typically involves code-switching to English, the term Llanito is also used as an alternative demonym to Gibraltarian. Before the British takeover, Spanish was widely spoken, but afterwards as most residents left the Rock, the language had a much smaller population. However, the border with Spain has been opened since 1985, allowing travel in and out of Spain. In 2001, there were 326 people of Spanish nationality in Gibraltar, owing to its close proximity to Morocco and Algeria, Arabic-speaking North African countries, Maghrebi Arabic is spoken by the Moroccan and other North African minorities on The Rock. In 2001, there were 961 Moroccans in Gibraltar, hindi and Sindhi is also spoken by the Indian community of Gibraltar. Maltese, a language which was used in Gibraltar up until the late 19th century. Similarly, Genoese was spoken in Catalan Bay well into the 19th century, Hebrew is also spoken by the Jewish community. Gibraltarian English Languages of Iberia Languages of the United Kingdom This article incorporates public domain material from the CIA World Factbook document 2006 edition

89.
Languages of the Isle of Man
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The main language of the Isle of Man is English, predominantly the Manx English dialect. Manx, the language of the island, is still maintained by a very small speaker population. Both English and Manx are official languages in Tynwald, the Manx language is a Celtic language of the Goidelic subdivision, and descendant of Old Irish. It is sometimes called Manx Gaelic to distinguish it from the variety of English. The language was historically the dominant one on the island, but fell out of use during the twentieth century, at the present time, less than one hundred children receive their education exclusively in Manx. There are an additional 1,689 second-language speakers, comprising 2. 2% of the population of the Isle of Man, the language has been offered in public schools since 1992, and has been mandatory since 2001. The English language has replaced Manx as the dominant language on the island, the native dialect is known as Anglo-Manx or Manx English, and has been employed by a number of the islands more notable writers such as T. E. Which distinguishes itself by considerable influence and a number of loanwords. However, this dialect is being supplanted by other dialects of English, for formal purposes British English is the usual form of English used in the Isle of Man. For many years, the BBC has been the broadcaster to the island. Forms of Irish English can also be heard on the island, the island has traditionally had many Irish tourists, and settlers. There are a few people in the island who speak other languages habitually, French, German and Spanish are also taught in the islands schools. Old Irish and Middle Irish are the ancestors of todays Manx language, neither of these became extinct, so much as evolved, and Manx diverged from Scottish and Irish forms. During the Middle Ages, the three Gaelic languages maintained a standard for higher registers and poetry. This is sometimes referred to as Classical Irish - despite the fact it was much in use in Scotland. It is also known as Classical Gaelic, many of the islands placenames are Norse in origin, e. g. Laxey, Ramsey, and so are some of the islands institutions e. g. Tynwald. There seems to be evidence that the island once spoke a form of P-Celtic before it became Gaelicised, there is little evidence of this in placenames however. Latin and French have been used in ceremonial purposes, e. g. legal use, and mottos, as in the UK. gov. im

Languages of the Isle of Man
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A bilingual English/Manx welcome sign in Douglas.

90.
Languages of Svalbard
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Svalbard has a population of approximately 2,395 people as of 2011. Approximately 70% of the people are Norwegian, the remaining 30% are Russian and Ukrainian, the official language of Svalbard is Norwegian. Russian is used in the Russian settlements, but formerly, Russenorsk was the lingua franca of the entire Barents Sea region. The annual population growth is -0. 02%, but as may be seen from the following chart, Norwegian is the official, and main language, of the archipelago. The weekly Svalbardposten is published in it, mainly Norwegian speaking settlements include Longyearbyen, the capital, Ny-Ålesund and Sveagruva There is a Polish Polar Station at Hornsund. Mainly Russian-speaking settlements include Barentsburg Some Russian is spoken in Svalbards capital Longyearbyen, abandoned communities which spoke Russian include Grumant until 1961, Pyramiden until 2000. The Arctic Yellow River Station was established in 2003, by the Peoples Republic of China, Smeerenburg was Dutch speaking until about 1660. The name itself is Dutch for blubber town, There was also a Dutch whaling station on Ytre Norskøya and several other locations in Svalbard as well. The Netherlands still retains a research station at Ny-Ålesund, the Danes were also present at Smeerenburg from 1619–23,1625 and 1631. They also built a settlement in Kobbefjorden, which they occupied for a quarter century. English was spoken from the many whaling settlements established in Svalbard from 1611 to 1670, french was spoken at the whaling settlement in Hamburgbukta, which was occupied from 1633 to 1638. France now maintains a station at Ny-Ålesund. At present, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan and South Korea all maintain research stations at Ny-Ålesund, the history of Russenorsk or Russonorsk is mainly limited to 18th and 19th centuries. The Russian Revolution of 1917 brought about an end to its use, it is reported that the last Norwegian–Russian trade occurred in 1923 and it was a pidgin language combining elements of Russian and Norwegian, created by traders and whalers from northern Norway and the Russian Kola peninsula. Pyramiden, which later became Soviet, was founded by a Swedish company in 1910